


Death and the Kid

by sldlovestv18



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Cute, Fluff, Fluffy, Gen, and one angsty one, but just briefly so there's no point in mentioning it, but that's it., it's mostly about their father/son relationship, mostly - Freeform, there are other characters here, there's one sad chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-09-14 02:18:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 35,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9153157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sldlovestv18/pseuds/sldlovestv18
Summary: A collection of One-shots and Two-shot about Death the Kid and his father. Very fluffy. There is some language in chapters where the characters are older but not much. R&R! er... R&C? I don't post here often...





	1. Kid is born/Spirit meets Kid

Spirit made his way towards the Death Room with some amount of nervousness. Lord Death had called him up, saying it was urgent. He had wondered what the issue was, was there some sort of witch related disaster going on or was it something else? He had only recently become a Death Scythe, and had already become Death's Scythe of choice, it was great honor, but he was new and had yet to have any big disasters pop up. Was it something personal? Did Death have some problem with his recent marriage to his girlfriend? Or was it some other stupid thing he did?

Spirit burst into the Death Room, breathing heavily.

"Lord Death! I'm here, what is the emergency!?" Spirit gasped, back far straighter then what was probably normal. Death was facing away from him when he entered, but at his little outburst he causally turned around.

"Oh my, you did get here fast! Calm down, now, there isn't any emergency. I just said that to get you to come here faster." Even if Lord Death was wearing a mask, Spirit could tell he was smiling. 

"You what now?"

"I just want to share some important news with you." Lord Death tilted his head and turned again, this time to the side. "I figured you might be the best to share it with, as my most trusted Death Scythe and given your recent marriage."

"My marriage?" Spirit was more than a little confused.

"Yes, your marriage. You are on your way to being a family man, it's been a rather long time since I had a Death Scythe as such, they are normally so caught up in their jobs that they don't bother until after they retire, or they die before they can. It's been around forty years I think... Anyway, your marriage got me think about something." Death turned once more to face him. "As you may have figured, I'm very old. I've been alive for centuries, watching the world develop around me and adapting... Watching generation after generation come and go. Now one of my favorite Death Scythe that I've had in a good while has gotten married and is going to be starting his own family and I thought... that maybe it was time for Death God for the generations to come to rise. Maybe the generations to come need someone new."

"What are you saying, sir?"

"I had a son! A precious little heir!" Death cheered, his hand suddenly jutting from his body and out toward Spirit, and to his surprise there was tiny newborn sitting in the palm. "I made him last night! Isn't he adorable?"

"Last night- what- how?" Spirit was a step or five beyond bewildered. His mind was darting around trying to sort out what was happening.

"I created him from a fragment of my soul. I told you the story of the kishin under the school." Spirit nodded, frowning slightly. He remembered the blunt way Lord told informed him of that. "Well, when I created the Death God that would eventually become the kishin, a small little sliver of my soul broke away at the same time because splitting apart my soul was a much more daunting task then I had originally planned. So once Asura was born, I captured the sliver in a bottle, in case I wanted to use it later. I'm glad I did. Do you want to hold him?"

"Sure, boss." Spirit said, gently plucking the newborn from Lord Death's ridiculous cartoonishly oversized hand and cradled him. The little one shifted slightly in his little black blanket. He had a tiny tuff of jet black hair on top of his little head, though there was some white mixed in on one side. Strange. He was cute though. "He is cute, Lord Death, congratulations. I personally hope to have a daughter one day."

"As fond as you are of women, I'm sure that's true." Death chuckled and Spirit gave an embarrassed smile back.

"When are you going to tell everyone else?"

"Soon enough, I sort of want to keep him to myself for a while, but I was dying to tell someone. I figured you were the best option." Nobody had to know the implications of him siring an heir just yet. That could wait till a later date.

"What's his name?"

"Death."

"Isn't that a little on the nose? He is going to be a Death God when he grows up, right?" Spirit raised a brow.

"He is already a god, just an immature one. And I'll have you know that Death is a family name, passed down the generations of Death Gods ruling over the earth realm. My name is Death, my father's name was Death, and his father before him. If it helps, we can call him Death the Kid... In fact, I rather like that. Death the Kid! Delightful! That's his name." Death reached out his hand and gently stroked the top of Kid's head with his finger, and even this soft motion was enough to wake him, revealing gorgeous yellow eyes. "Death the Kid."


	2. Sid meets Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kid meets Sid. That's it.

Lord Death let out something akin to a sigh as he finished the piece of ridiculous school paperwork. This was the worst part about running a school by far, why did such complex systems of schooling and government have to develop in the first place? People had been just as happy when they lived in filthy little huts and was led by the strongest warrior, Lord Death would know. Anyways… He then looked over to his young son, who was sitting on the floor, playing with blocks. Kid was a little over a year old now and just about the cutest thing he had ever seen, and that was saying something given how long he had been alive. The little one was wearing a black onesie with a skull emblem on it, along with some little black booties. He was building two little towers, as neat as he possibly could, Death noted. There were some early signs in his son the Madness of Order was going to be strong with him, but it was with most young reapers, including Death himself, so he would outgrow it. Y’know, probably. 

As for the reason Death the Kid, his precious little kiddo, was in the death room? The little tike had yanked of the nanny’s ponytail clear off, so she had quit and Lord Death was stuck watching him until he found a new one, which was going to be difficult considering his adorable little son was monster to nanny’s and he was starting to gain a reputation. The only reason the last one took the job was because of how much he could pay. It was basically bribery at this point. Maybe he should start bringing kiddo to the interviews and let him choose. He just had to make it until Kid is old enough to look after himself, which since he is an immature God of Death, wouldn’t be long. Death couldn’t help but overhear the grumble sound that came from his son, if he still had eyebrows, one would be lifted in confusion but since he had a mask for a face, his eyeholes morphed to fit the emotion. 

“Kiddo? You just dirty your diaper?” He asked in an even goofier voice then the one he had adopted at the dawn of the school’s existence. Kid looked you at him with giant yellow eyes and shook his head, but the look of tiny shame gave the real answer. “Oh, really? Then you won’t mind if I check?” He reached out his gloved hand and scooped up his little one, which was meet with great protest.

“No, no!” Kid screeched, waving his little fists around. “Dada, no!” 

“Oh, calm down, Kiddo. Do we really have to do this every time?” Death sighed, lifting Kid’s tiny baby booty up to his nose and taking a sniff, recoiling at the smell. “Phew! Smells like a dirty diaper. Let’s take care of that.” Death said in a smiley tone, laying Kid out on the desk and summoning his diaper bag.

Death then started the battle royale that was changing his son’s diaper. He couldn’t do something as delicate as change a diaper with his foam hands, so he had to use his real, skeleton hands, so when little one took swings at his hands, he hit full bone, not foam, which wasn’t fun for either of them. And Kid was really squirmy to, which made things even more risky. All and all, not a fun time, but things got even worse when Sid came in, dragging in two kids in by the cuffs of their shirts.

“Lord Death, these two kids-“ Sid started before Kid heard him and twisted his little head around to peak at him and…

_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!_

Kid let out a cry of epic proportion, starting to fail even harder, practically purple in the face.

“Now look what you goofuses did!” Death scowled and the trio that had entered the room froze. “What are you staring at? Turn around!” They did as they were told and Death went to soothing his son. “Hey, hey, calm down, Kiddo. They turned around, they can’t see your pee-pee.” One of the kids snickered, earing glares from the adults and an elbow to the ribs from his classmate. “There we go!” Death cheered as he closed up the clean diaper and poofed his gloves back on. He scooped up Kid and laid him over his shoulder. “Whatcha want, Sid? Whaazzuuppp?”

“Eh, it’s not important. Was trying to use scare tactics on these punks, teach ‘em a lesson. That’s not important.” Sid shoved the kids away. “Get out of here! I have to talk to Lord Death.” They ran away, fast. Sid turned around.

“Hm?” Death bounced little Kid down to further calm him from his little fit. Kid always got worked up during diaper changes. 

“You have a baby? Where did he come from? How does the staff not know about him?” Sid stepped closer to try to get a better look.

“Yes, little Kiddo is a little over a year old, he’s a cutey, ain’t he? I made him all by myself, cool, right?” Death smiled, or he would be if he had a face, turning his boy around so that Sid could see him, and Kid blinked up at him with a blank look. “And I’m not really keeping him secret, if someone had asked, I would have told them. I just… want to keep him to myself for a while. He’s an heir, he’s my heir, and that’s a big deal. I’ve been watching people raise children for years, but more importantly I’ve watched royalty raise children for years. They used to hold galleries to watch royals be born, and they all turned out rotten. I’d really prefer that Kid stay out of the public eye for a bit, at least until I can help it. I hire nannies from cities over.”

“I get that.” Sid nodded, reaching forward and giving Kid’s chin a tickle, prompting giggles from the boy. “Seems like baby fever over here, you got a kid, Death Scythe’s wife just had one.” 

“Seems that way, doesn’t it? You didn’t ask, but his name is Death the Kid.” Lord Death rolled the bottom pads of his hand around, jostling Kid and making him laugh more. 

“You know, I’ve always liked kids, never got around to having any of my own.” Sid gave Kid’s raven black hair a ruffle. 

“You still have time. You could adopt, maybe?” 

“Maybe.” 

“Tell you what, the next time the school takes in a ward, you can take a look at them, see if you’d like them.” Death started to carry Kid off, and Sid was confused before Death summoned a crib made of magic from the ground and laid Kid down in it. “Nap time.” Death answered the silent question.

“Ah…” Sid nodded, walking over, looking down at Kid, squirming around his crib, Sid noticed something. “What’s with those strips in his hair?”

“They are a mark, they mean he will be the next Lord Death.” Death said as he pushed two stuffed toys towards his son on either side. 

“Interesting.”


	3. Playdate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little Kid has a playdate with Maka, it doesn't go very well.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Lord Death asked Spirit as he felt Kid grip his finger tighter with his tiny, two-year-old hand. Kid’s nanny had cancelled and Spirit had offered to watch him in the form of a playdate between his precious little Maka and Kid. Lord Death is hesitant, as Kid doesn’t like people very much. He’s a particular boy and he doesn’t like it when his schedule is changed.

“Yeah, we’ll have a great time, isn’t that right, Kiddo?” Spirit extended a hand out to Kid, who stared at him with cold, uncaring, yellow eyes. 

“Don’t touch me.” Kid said clearly, surprising Spirit. “You don’t get to call me Kiddo, only Daddy can. I’m Kid to you.”

“Articulate little guy, huh?” Spirit withdrew his hand and gave Death an anxious grin.

“Of course, he’s a reaper. He is very intelligent.” Lord Death ruffled Kid’s hair before lifting them up so they were face to mask. “Alright, it’s time for Daddy to go to work. You be good for Death Scythe and don’t pull out any of Maka’s hair. Now give me some lovin’!” 

“Bye bye, Daddy!” Kid smiled widely, suddenly turning into a completely different child then the cold one that had just snapped at Spirit. He hugged his dad around the neck and gave him a kiss on the mask. 

“Take care.” Death said as he sat Kid down and… walked?.... away. Kid turned around and looked at Spirit with a chilled expression. 

“Take me to the toys.” Kid demanded, though his tone suggested to was more of a request. This was a weird kid, what on earth was Lord Death doing to this kid? Was it just the way he was?

“Alright, Maka is just waking up from her nap.” Spirit led little Kid over to the living room where Kid saw a young girl standing in a playpen.   
She had large green eyes and her hair was pulled into two short ponytails, she was wearing a poofy pink dress. Kid assumed this was the Maka that Death Scythe ranted about all the time. Kid felt Death Scythe grab him under his armpits and lift him up. Kid started to panic. He was being put in with Maka, Kid didn’t know how to deal with another child. He was sat in the corner and just as he did, Maka sat down and stared at him. He stared back, she blinked.   
Kid had only been here a few seconds and he already missed his daddy. Normally when his nanny Miss Samantha couldn’t watch him, he’d get to go to work with daddy, so why was he here? He didn’t like it here, it was different, he didn’t like Death Scythe. Kid tried to think of some words to describe him. He pulled from his memory some words that he’d heard some of the female teachers and students had used to describe him… what were they? Pervert, jackass, asshat… that British exchange student called him a wanker, whatever that meant. Kid didn’t actually know what any of those words meant. He assumed that they were words he wasn’t supposed to know yet, because he was two, but that seemed silly to him. They were just words and he was almost three! He was a big boy. He was even getting his big boy powers, though he hasn’t told his daddy because he’s still worried they might go away. 

Kid was smashed out of his thoughts when he noticed that Maka was right in front of him, holding out a stuffed toy.

“Hewwo.” The little girl said, pushing the doll towards him. Kid lifted a brow at it. Was this some sort of offering? Daddy told him that back in the day, people made sacrifices to gods of death, was that like this? Was that what was happening?

“Hello.” Kid responded, not sure what to do. His tone was a dead giveaway for that but Maka didn’t seem to notice. 

“Pway?” Maka shook the doll slightly.

Ah, now Kid understood, she wanted to play. He had never played with another child before, only with his daddy or his nanny. He didn’t much like the idea of playing with Maka. Surely this average human child couldn’t comprehend the sort of play he enjoyed. She was younger then he was, and she… well, she was human and he wasn’t.

“No, thank you.” Kid said, pushing the doll away.

“No?” Tears were welling up in Maka’s eyes. Oh no.

“I’m sorry, don’t cry.” Kid thought to what he saw adults do when they were trying comfort each other and decided to give Maka an awkward shoulder pat. “There… there?”

“Pway?” She asked again, and he shook his head in response.

“No, um… I’m tired.” Kid lied, not wanting the girl to cry anymore. Is was bad to make girls cry, Daddy told him so.

“Oh…” Maka said, nodding slowly, not fully understanding what he meant until she saw him lay down and deducing he wanted a nap. She scooted herself over to the other end and 

Kid opened his eyes and looked out of the playpen at Death Scythe.

How dare he trap him in this box. Kid didn’t like it here, he wanted his daddy. He needed a plan to get out of here and to his daddy. Then, it came to him, if he could distract Death Scythe he could get to mirror and talk to Daddy; he could cry, get him to come and rescue him. Kid looked down at his hand before grinning evilly and standing up in the pen. His hand started to glow with purple lightening, but Spirit was too busy watching something on TV to notice. Kid’s grin transformed into a smirk as he launched the spark of Death God magic at the Death Scythe.

“What the…” Death Scythe squawked before letting out a string of curse words that Kid didn’t understand. He took the opportunity to climb out of the play pen and run away.   
Kid ran into the master bedroom, where he found a full length mirror. Perfect. He started to work up some tears before writing his daddy’s number in the mirror. Death’s concerned mask face appeared in the mirror.

“Kiddo?”

“Daddy, Death Scythe is being mean to me!” Kid cried out, plopping himself on the floor. When he noticed Kid was crying he stepped through the mirror and picked him up, it was then that Spirit rushed in, carrying his little Maka. 

“What happened?” Death asked, bouncing his little boy.

“I’d like to know that to!” Spirit said, holding Maka close. “Things were just fine and then Kid blasted me with some weird magic and darted away!” 

“Magic…?” Death mumbled before realization dawned on him and he let out a sigh. “I’m sorry about this, Death Scythe, I should have known this would happen. Kid can be really difficult and he is just around the age when God’s of Death start to develop their powers.”

“No kidding!” Spirit was obviously very frazzled.

“I apologize; I should have realized that Kid wasn’t ready for more people yet.” Death sighed, looking at his son now, who was looking a little ashamed of himself now. “He’s been growing up so fast and is so smart that it is easy to forget that he’s still a little boy.”

“But I’m not a little boy! I’m a big boy! I’m getting my big boy powers and everything!” Kid puffed himself up and Death chuckled.

“You are, aren’t you? I’m very proud of you, kiddo. Here, watch this.” Death made a finger gun with his free hand and blasted a small ball of magic at Spirit’s feet, provoking a squeal from the younger man. Kid burst into laughter before making a finger gun of his own and blasting a sliver of magic from it, and then doing the same with his other hand. Little Kid giggled, blasting tiny little slivers of magic with his tiny finger guns, and that made Lord Death laugh as well. “Well, we better be off. I’ll be taking Kiddo with me, but maybe we can do this again sometime when he’s a little older.”

“Are you kidding me!? I don’t want a dangerous little boy who shoots lazers around my baby girl! She could get hurt! Never again!” Spirit was flailing around, but Maka wasn’t paying him much attention. She looked pretty used to it, really. Death shrugged at him.

“Suit yourself.” He said, heading back into the mirror. “Come on, Kiddo, what do you say about playing in the graveyard?”

“Yeah!” Spirit heard the little boy respond as they disappeared through the mirror. Spirit stared at the mirror for a second before blinking.

Those two really weren’t human, were they?


	4. Dinner part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang comes over for dinner at Kid's house.

It was lunchtime in the DWMA, and so Maka, Soul, Black Star, and Tsubaki were loitering around in the courtyard, nibbling on their lunches and chatting about some stupid assignment Stein was making them do. Death the Kid and his twin pistols Liz and Patty entered the yard and made their way towards the group. Liz and Patty seemed very cheery about something, chatting excitedly about something while Kid looked fairly miserable. 

“Yo, Kid, who pissed in your cereal this morning?” Soul asked, easily noticing the reapers foul mood. Kid rolled his eyes.

“My father would like to invite you all to dinner Friday.” Kid said as he sat down and brought out his lunch out. “He is very excited at the prospect of my having friends as well as thinking that we will make a great team of meister and weapons, so he’d like to celebrate. He’s very excited about this, so I wouldn’t recommend rejecting the offer. He doesn’t get out of the school much and it’d be a shame if you didn’t show up.”

“You don’t sound very excited about it.” Maka said, raising a brow.

“That’s because Lord Death likes to embarrass Kid!” Patty laughed, flailing her arms around.

“Every time that Death has come home for dinner he has told embarrassing stories about Kid, sometimes he brings out photo albums so be prepared for that. Maybe if we are lucky we’ll get to see home videos taken by Lord Death and Kid’s legion on nannies.” Liz smirked as Kid’s face grew progressively redder.

“I haven’t had a nanny since I was eight and you know it!” Kid screeched as he yanked out his sandwich, which had been cut into a perfect square. “I hope that since this time there is larger group of people that he might show more restraint.”

“You met your dad?” Liz sassed, earning her a glare from her meister.

“Show up at 8 o’clock, don’t be late.” Kid said, biting into his sandwich.

The group unanimously decided that they were going, because no way were they going to miss this. They had to see it for themselves.

#####################################################################################

“THE GREAT AND MIGHTY BLACK STAR HAS ARRIVED!”

“Your fifteen minutes late.” Kid scowled at his annoying friend, opening the door wider for him and his weapon. Tsubaki nodded politely at Kid, looking sorry for how late they were. Kid knew she probably wanted to make it early, if anything, but Black Star was probably insistent on being fashionably late.

“The great Black Star has to make a grand entrance!” Black darted into the mansion, no doubt to go sing his praises to the others, while Tsubaki walked in slower.

“I’m sorry about Black Star, he is really excited about the dinner. You know how much he likes food and he thinks that eating with the gods will help him learn tactics to overcome them.” Her smile was sheepish, Kid returned the smile briefly.

“I understand, come on, everybody is waiting.” Kid lead her to the dining hall, where Black Star had already been given a Reaper Chop to the head and sat down. 

Tsubaki took her seat next to Black Star and Kid took his seat at the end of the table. Lord Death was sitting at one end of the table, and Kid was sitting at the opposite end with his weapons sitting on either side of him. Maka and Soul were sitting on Death’s left-hand side and Black Star and Tsubaki on the right. The symmetry of the sitting arrangement made Kid very happy, which was good because it was only a matter of time before his father started with the embarrassing stories. Everybody was wearing their casual clothes, even Kid, even though Kid’s casual was a white button up and slacks. It would have looked more formal if it weren’t for Kid’s relaxed posture. Well, relaxed for Kid, that is.

“I’m so glad you all could make it!” Lord Death said, a smile in his tone, as he clapped his hands together, which signaled some hired help to appear with the food. “It’s been so long since Kid’s made any friends, and never mind one’s with so much talent! I thought he was going to be a loner forever until he met the Tomson Sisters! They have been such a good influence on him. Anyway! I thought we could have a nice American family style dinner. Isn’t it neat?” Kid was already pinching the bridge of his nose. This was going to be a long night. 

“Meatloaf!” Black Star howled, doing a fist pump. Kid held back an urge to roll his eyes, he was fairly certain that Black Star would have been equally excited if they brought out a live octopus to eat.

“Alright.” Soul grinned, also excited for food.

Kid was personally a little embarrassed over his father’s choice in food, because while he had lived in America his whole life and Lord Death had been there for centuries, Liz and Patty were very American as well, but the others were of more Japanese decent, Black Star and Tsubaki were particularly attached to their heritage, so was Maka to an extent. Kid personally would have picked something more delicate and Japanese in nature, he liked Japanese food, but he wasn’t going to question his father’s choice out loud. And so they were going to have meatloaf, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and green beans. Lots of starch. Kid wasn’t much of a fan, but his father was and this was more for him then it was for Kid, no matter what his father thought. If there was one thing Kid was looking forward to, was watching the others reaction to his father eating.

Since his father was god of death who had merged himself to a cloak and mask, he didn’t have any need to eat, but sometimes he did anyway because he likes it. It was funny to watch he would scoop food into one of the holes of his mask, where the food basically disappears. It was especially entertaining when he scooped it in an eye hole. 

So dinner started, and after five minutes of stunned silence from their guests when Lord Death scrap a bite of meatloaf into his left eye socket, the students started chatting about random missions they had gone on that week. Things were good, normal, pleasant even. Kid thought he was going to make it through the afternoon until…

“So, Kiddo, how is your counseling going?” Death asked, tilting his head. If it were at all possible, Kid was sure he would die of embarrassment. He really preferred his friends not know much about his therapy, they thought he was mentally unstable as it was.

“It’s going fine, Father.” Kid said, picking at his food slightly, determined to make his pile of mashed potatoes as symmetrical as possible. 

“I’m just making sure; you’ve always been such a handful and after you nearly killed Soul and BlackStar because he broke the tip off one of the school’s spikes I got worried. I haven’t checked in with you since you started and I figured now is good as time as any to check.”

“You haven’t checked in because you haven’t been home since my first day of school… Well, my first first day of school, anyway.” Kid said and suddenly the others felt awkward. “It doesn’t matter. I told you, a human therapist is hardly effective for a death god. Regardless, I’ve been doing fine. I’ve only left class to check on the picture frames three times this month.”

“That’s great! And I’ve seen your soul collection is a little slower than the last time, have your missions been going well?” Death asked as he pressed a glass of water against his mask and sipped from it. How. 

“They’ve all gone fine for the most part, but you’ve been sending me on a lot of assignments in your stead lately, I have to attend school and therapy, I’ve been very busy.” Kid said, taking a bite of meatloaf. “No matter, Liz and Patty aren’t in a rush to become Death Scythes and as you have pointed out, I don’t need to train weapons at all.”

“I remember when you were little-“ Here we go. “- You said you wanted to use a chain scythe, because that way you could have a symmetrical weapon. I would insist that you use a scythe, because its family tradition, but you were so stubborn.”

“You really wanted to use a chain scythe?” Tsubaki blushed, smiling at Kid slightly. Kid opened his mouth to answer, but his father beat him to the punch.

“Yes indeedy! When he did weapon training his favorite one to use was a chain scythe. Kid was great with all the weapons, but twin wielding guns and chain scythes were what he was very best at. I’m sure that he could use you very well, Tsubaki, if you weren’t with Black Star. Granted, if he turns you into a Death Scythe, Kid might end up wielding you anyway!” Lord Death twirled his fork around as if that helped his point at all. 

“No way will Kid ever wield Tsubaki, especially since she got the Enchanted Sword ability. He couldn’t handle it.” Black Star crossed his arms, prideful.

“Neither can you, as of yet.” That was blow to Black Star’s ego, but he’d be damned if it showed on his face. “Besides, Kid could probably handle that ability better then you can, his soul is larger and stronger than yours. Even still, when Kid assumes his true form as fully fledged death god, his soul will swell to enormous proportions, which would give the Enchanted Sword an unlimited amount of power.”

“Wait… for real? His soul is really going to swell up all huge?” Black Star raised a brow.

“Yes, it will.” Lord Death nodded and Kid seemed to have given up that he was ever going to get in a word. “I remember he was a newborn, his soul was so tiny and frail, but by the time he was three, it had quadrupled its size! When he was four and we started his weapon training, with regular old weapons of course, I gave him a scythe and he threw it clear across the room in anger because it made him unbalanced. Eventually I got him to use one, and he was very good with it, he was so naturally talented, but boy did he hate it.”

No one was going to comment on the fact that Death had just randomly switched the topic of the conversation.

“Kid knows how to use a scythe?” Maka was actually genuinely surprised to hear all this about Kid, because it seemed like most miesters had a specialty, except for the really good, skilled ones. 

“Yes, Kid knows how to use a whole variety of weapons, he just doesn’t like using them and since his OCD has gotten worse if he so much as holds an unsymmetrical weapon he spits up blood and passes out. I’m sure he’ll grow out of it eventually, but therapy helps. At least that’s what he just told me.” They were pretending that Kid wasn’t here anymore, weren’t they? Awesome. 

“He’ll have to use weapons other than Liz and Patty eventually, right? Because he’s going to live for a really long time and they are just weapons.” That was one thing Maka had always wondered about Kid. Why would Kid train weapons when he was going to outlive them by hundreds of years? Seems sad, and also sort of pointless. 

And now, Kid interjects before his father can speak.

“I will use Liz and Patty as my weapons for as long as they are willing, once they retire I will train new ones. There is greater satisfaction in using a weapon or weapons that you raised yourself, and the closeness that comes with raising them yourself helps with soul resonance.” Kid said firmly. 

“Yes, except that your death god soul is very flexible, which makes it easier to resonant with different or multiple weapons. Which renders that argument pointless.” One could almost hear Kids brain boil. 

“Plus if I train weapons myself I can make sure they are up to my specifications.” Kid sighed, stabbing at his food slightly. “Anything less than perfect is unacceptable.”

“Outgrow it, you say?” Soul snickered, looking at Lord Death before pointing at Kid with his eyes.

“We can only hope.” Lord Death sweat dropped and Kid then started to seethe quietly. “Admittedly he was always like this, but it was gotten more extreme over the years.”

Death really did have a hard time understanding Kid’s strange compulsions, even if he knows where they come from. All death gods were very strong with the madness of order, to varying degrees, it helped with their rolls in maintaining order in the world. Most choose not to engage it that much, or at the very least the line of gods residing over Earth did. They trusted people enough to let them have some limited control. Of course Kid was still too young and naïve to use his madness wavelength, because Lord Death hadn’t told him about it. That didn’t stop it from effecting his personality, though, and if he was being honest with himself he was a lot like Kid when he was a young death god. Most of the buildings he made were symmetrical and he became obsessed with becoming the god of ultimate order at a young age, well young for a god anyway. Sometimes Death wonders if his old acquaintances felt the same way watching him operate back when he first created Asura by removing all his fears as he felt watching Kid fold toilet paper and rant about symmetry. It was a weird thought.

Death came out of his thoughts to find that everybody had finished dinner and was getting up to leave, so he stood up.

“Hey, hey, where are you going, you just got here! Stay awhile!” He bounced slightly before lifting a finger. “I know, let’s all gather in the living room, we can look at old photographs of Kid and watch home movies! I nice bonding experience for the team, yes?”

No way were they missing out on this much potential blackmail.


	5. Dinner part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang go over to Kid's place for dinner.

“Come in, come in! Oh, it’s so great to have people over, I’ve never gotten to show off Kid’s baby books to such an audience before. This is just splendid!” Death laughed as he took a seat on the couch. He patted the spot next to him and looked to his mortified son. “Come sit next to me, Kiddo, it’s been so long since we’ve done this.”

“Yes, Father.” Kid nodded, going and taking his seat next to his father. It had been a few years since they had looked inside the retched book, or at least Kid personally, it had been shown to Liz and Patty, Kid had forgotten its contents, but he was sure it wasn’t good. Especially since he could, in fact, remember some of his tendencies as a young child. Like he was not immune to the tendency of small children to run around with no clothes on. In his defense, clothes were so itchy and asymmetrical, what reason would he have not to take him off? 

Liz and Patty took their seat next to Kid, with Maka and Soul sitting on the other side and Black Star and Tsubaki hovering over them from behind the couch. Death reached his hands out and then the book appeared out of nowhere and into Lord Death’s hands. 

Now of course the first two pages were just the obligatory newborn pictures of Kid, sleeping in a black blanket with little black mitten wrapped around his tiny hands so he wouldn’t scratch at his eyes. Kid was one of those babies who’s sleeping face was sort of grumpy by default, with his tiny eyebrows drawn together and lips sort of pouting, nose scrunched up slightly like he was smelling something bad. The next few pages were pretty standard cute baby photos, pictures of Kid sleeping, or just looking cute, but then one of interest came up. There was a picture of Spirit, obviously much younger, hair in a ponytail, holding young Kid, who was clearly unhappy and flailing his arms around. The boy’s face was practically purple with rage. 

“Oh! I remember this! This was just after Soul found your mother was pregnant with you, Maka. Death Scythe wanted to practice holding a baby. Kid didn’t react well.” Death rubbed the back of his neck. Maka looked mildly amused.

“Smart baby.” Maka said and Kid started to blush. 

“In all fairness, I didn’t like many people and Death Scythe was loud and obnoxious. I was a small child who wanted to rest and he’d always poke at me.” Kid’s face was bordering on a scowl. 

“I can imagine, I’ve seen Papa around little kids, he just can’t keep his hands to himself.” Maka rolled her eyes and Lord Death and Death nodded.

“Your father just loved to poke at Kiddo, he really did. He’d squeeze his cheeks and make goofy faces and Kiddo would just stare at him, or scream. He screamed a lot. Quite the pair of lungs he had on him.” Lord Death rubbed one side of his head where his ears were supposed to be, remembering his son’s high pitches death screeches. Kid’s cheeks didn’t get any less red. 

It didn’t get any better when Death flipped the page and what greeted them was a bunch of pictures of little Kid, taking a bath in the sink. One was of Kid just sitting there, smiling at the camera with a small pile of bubbles, another was of Kid slashing at the water with his tiny hands, and finally the most embarrassing of them all was one of Kid bent over the edge of the skin to look into the next one, giving a perfect shot of his tiny little baby butt. Black Star, Soul and Patty burst into laughter and Kid’s blush grew across his face, but it got worse from there.

“Wait, I recognize that sink. That is the sink in the school’s teacher’s lounge.” Maka pointed at the pictures, a big grin on her face. “I remember from when Papa used to take me to work. You used to give Kid bathes in the teacher’s lounge?”

“Yes indeedy! It was one of the only places with a sink big enough in the school and the lunch ladies wouldn’t let me bathe in the kitchen.” Death nodded and Kid gave him a wide eyed look.

“You did what!?” Kid shouted, his blushed reaching well to his ears. 

“You sound upset.” 

“Upset!?” Kid screeched, because no, upset wasn’t the word for this feeling. Mortified, horrified beyond all rational belief, would be better terms. He felt like dying. 

“You were so cute.” Tsubaki cooed, looking closer at the photos. “You were so little.” Kid bowed his head in defeat. Kill him, kill him now. 

“He was, wasn’t he? He still is a little cutey to me.” Death pinched one of Kid’s cheeks. “He had such a cute tush too.”

“Father!”

“What?’ Death tilted his head at his son.

“… At least pinch the other side!” Kid turned the other side of his face towards his father.

“Oh, right.” Death obliged by his sons wishes and pinched the other side.

“Thank you.” Kid nodded, meanwhile Tsubaki was trying to shake the question of whether or not Kid’s butt was still that cute from her brain. “Please turn the page.”

“Okay, Kiddo.” Death flipped the page, still unaware of why Kid had gotten so upset in the first place. 

What followed was several pictures of Kid sleeping in increasingly odd ways as the child got older, which Lord Death explained as Kid was a handful to get to go to sleep, so Death would just let him sleep where ever he landed. One of the most hilarious of these pictures was one of ten-month old Kid, having somehow managed to climb one of the crosses in the Death room, hung himself upside down and fallen asleep. When asked how he didn’t fall, father and son both shrugged. They really had no idea. Then they came across a less embarrassing photo. It was of Lord Death, Spirit, and Sid, Lord Death was holding Kid, Spirit was holding Maka, and Sid was holding the tiny blue puffball that was Black Star.

“Woah, what is this? Why am I there?” Black Star asked, practically climbing up to the top of couch.

“WOULD YOU GET OFF THE TOP OF THE COUCH YOU GREAT IDIOT!” Kid screeched like barn owl, flailing his arms around, prompting Black Star to hop back down. Death sweat dropped at his son’s outburst before going on to explain.

“This picture was taken just after Black Star had been taken as a ward of the school. Sid had agreed to look after him, Maka was born the day that he was brought in. We were all very excited, so we took a picture.” It was clear from Death’s tone that he was happy, but when the holes on his mask bent inwards and he somehow managed to blush over his mask, indicating that he was embarrassed. “What you don’t know is that right after this picture was taken, Black Star pulled on Kid’s hair and then Kid punched him in the face. We decided to keep the two of you apart for a while, we reintroduced you later, but Black Star knocked over some of Kid’s blocks and he hit him again. After that, we decided to keep you two apart, but you two seemed to have found each other all on your own… And then immediately fought each other… Huh.”

“You hear that, Kid? We coulda been childhood friends!” Black Star grinned, but since it was Black Star it was really more of a wide smirk. “How lucky are you, to almost be childhood friends with the mighty Black Star!” 

“I doubt it.” Kid said, with his usual look of disinterest back on his face. “Though I am curious as to why I wasn’t close to Maka.”

“Her father was nervous about having a boy with magical powers around his ‘darling little Maka’, so after a small incident, you were kept apart.” Death said before flipping the page. 

What followed was a chaotic mix of pictures of Kid’s face as an infant. The group looked at Lord Death questioningly.

“Hm? Oh, yes, these are from a period of time when I thought it would be a neat idea to catalog all of the adorable little faces he made.” Lord Death before starting to point to them. “That was the face he made when he was happy. That was the face he made when he was upset. That was the face he made when he was angry, but come to think of it he might have been angry with me because I was trying to take a picture of his face when he wanted his diaper changed.”

Kid put his face in his hand and shook his head. He wasn’t sure how he made it past infancy.

“That was the face he made he was hungry, and this is the one he made when he was full. He made this face when he was sleepy. And this one when he thought someone did something stupid.” Somehow it didn’t surprise the others that this was something Kid did, even as an infant. “And this is the face he made when he had gas.” That last one earned a few snickers and garnered some from Kid, but it got worse. Of course.

“He still makes that face.” Liz smirked, her amusement clearly high.

“Liz!” Kid gapped, his face regaining its red color from before. 

“What? You do, I know you like to act all high and mighty because you’re a rich boy and you’re ‘not human’-“

“Why did you use air quotes? I’m not human!”

“- but that doesn’t mean your past bodily functions. I know how stuff works, you might be immune to toxins, the sun, the cold, and most diseases, but you’ve got a physical body that you gotta feed, and if you put stuff in-“ Liz smirked as Kid covered her mouth with both his hands and glowered at her. 

“They get the point.” Kid said, using a firm tone that was useless with how bright red his face was, he looked like a strawberry. Liz removed his hands from her mouth.

“Besides, we live you, and there is only so much you can hide when you spend as much time around each other as we do.” Liz nodded with finality. Kid fell back and sunk into the couch. 

“Alright, enough of that. We are about to get to my favorite part of the book! When Kid got older and actually did stuff.” Death chirped, happily flipped the page.

True to his word, the pictures were a lot more lively, all though there was the odd picture of Kid taking a nap in an odd place, and of course this was also the part of the book where there were more pictures of Kid naked, or pretty much naked would pop up every once and a while, and while in each of them Kid’s… little Kid, was always covered, Kid would explode with embarrassment each time they appeared and would start to flip the page rapidly. Liz and Patty thought Kid was going to turn purple with how much blood was rushing to his face.

Then an odd picture popped up, one of Kid being held by a brunette woman, Kid was about four years old and they were standing in front of the Gallows Manor. The building looked strangely new in the photo, and it wasn’t a woman they recognized. 

“Who’s that?” Maka asked, tilting her head at the photo.

“That’s Samantha, she was my nanny from the time I was one till I was eight. When I was really little I would spend the day at her apartment and the night with my father, but when I got older he had the Gallows built and Mrs. Samantha became a live-in nanny. We lived in this house together with a bunch of other staff, most of whom I dismissed by the time I was five. Eventually enough she got married and her husband moved in, which was part of the reason why she left. When I was eight we determined I was old enough to take care of myself and that it would be best for her relationship with her husband if they had their own place, so they moved out.” Kid said before smiling. “She just had her second child, her name is Emily and she’s adorable. I believe I had a picture of her somewhere.” Kid dug out his phone from his pocket and flipped through the photos before finding one of him holding the child and showing it to the group.

“Awh, she’s so cute. You still keep in touch, that’s sweet.” Maka smiled at the picture before looking to Kid. 

“Of course I do, she was my favorite person besides my father. She’s a sweet woman.”

“She was only Nanny he ever liked, probably because she’s the one he chose. After he scared all the other ones off I just started letting him sit in on the interviews and he chose her.” Death patted Kid’s head before closing the book. “Alright, now time for my favorite part! Home movies! I just recently got them all put on DVD, I got someone from the tech department to help me, though they aren’t really in order, sorry Kiddo.”

“Not in order?” Kid paled, eye twitching.

“Yeah, the whole process was so confusing that I didn’t want to mess with order much. These computer now-a-days are so confusing.” Lord Death said was he got up and turned on the TV before putting the DVD in. “I think it starts with your first reap, that Kishin you took down?”

“Ah, yes.” Kid nodded as his father took a seat. The TV came to life with images.

The camera was being pointed at a mirror that showed a small Kid, flying somewhere on his skateboard. 

“Is this stupid thing working yet?” Lord Death could be heard mumbling in under his breath, the camera shaking slightly. “That’s what the light means, yeah? Ah.” 

_Camera held steady as Kid rode up to someone, or something, rather. It was kishin, still mostly human looking, but with weird claws and pointy teeth. Kid was holding no weapons, his tiny fists curled up tight, Kid was no older than six years old. Kid stopped to hover in front of the thing that he had apparently been chasing. He pointed at the thing and started to yell._

_“Kishin! You have strayed from the path of good and devoured human souls, and now I’m going to reap your soul for father!” Kid’s voice was slightly high pitched and his tone read that he had rehearsed the lines multiple times, at least until the end when he progressed backwards into a more childish tone of voice. Lord Death could be heard giving a ‘he tried’ sigh from behind the camera._

_The kishin gave an unhuman hiss and leaped forward and Kid swerved to the side to avoid the attack. He was just a little too slow and earned a scratch to the arm. Kid hissed for a second before surging forward to attack, the kishin was too quick for him and grabbed Beelzebub, but instead of panicking Kid took the opportunity and jumped onto its arm, running up the length of it. The young reaper then leaped from the forearm and jammed his hand into his opponent’s chest and yanked out its soul. The kishin’s body disappeared and Kid made a triumphant noise… right before he fell several feet right onto his butt._

_“Ow!” Little Kid mumbled, rubbing his little bum._

The group, except Lord Death and Kid, turned their heads and blinked at their reaper friend. Kid felt the eyes on him and looked around.

“What?”

“Dude, what on earth was that?” Soul asked, throwing his arm towards the screen, which was showing Kid climbing back on his skate board while Lord Death breathed heavily. 

“My first reap. Wasn’t it obvious?” Kid was looking at them like they were a bunch of stupid idiots now. 

“Yeah, but you didn’t use a weapon, like at all. You just reached into the dude’s chest! Even the mighty Black Star can’t do that!” Black said, looking equally as curious.

“I’m a reaper, I don’t need a weapon to reap souls, though it is helpful and much cleaner. Do you have any idea how disturbing it is to reach into someone’s chest and grab their soul? It’s disgusting.” Kid wrinkled his nose.

“Yes indeedy, us reaper don’t need weapons to collect souls, though it is admittedly helpful. We can just reach into someone and pluck it out.” Lord Death nodded and so did Kid, like that was a perfectly normal thing. The group nodded back but scooted away from the two reapers a bit before looking back to the screen, which was now featuring a baby Kid.

_Little Kid, looking to be around five months old, was sitting in a highchair in the Death Room. He was very agitated, whining angrily at his father. He flopped his arms around, pounding on the chair, demanding something._

_“You hungry, Kiddo?” Death teased from behind the camera and Kid whined at him even harder, giving him a harsh glare, or at least as harsh as he could at that age. “Alright, alright. Here you go.”_

_A bottle entered the frame and Kid grabbed at it before lifting it up to his mouth and sucking it down in a hungry matter. Death laughed and started to rub the top of Kid’s head with a giant, glove-like finger. The baby glare intensified and he grunted with displeasure at being touched, making his father laugh._

_“You were really hungry, weren’t Kiddo?” He didn’t stop patted his hair. Kid released his suction on the bottle and screeched at his father. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop! Geez…”_

_Kid continued to feed, looking much happier now… for like thirty seconds before Death started to pester him again. Death cooed at his son, rubbing his head in adoration._

_“Your hair is so soft, Kiddo, hey, hey, stop swatting at me.” Death laughed poking his son more. Kid was too stubborn to stop eating this time, waving a stray hand around to try to stop his father._

Maka turned her head to comment to Kid about how cute he was when he was baby to see Lord Death with an arm around his son, poking him in the cheek and commenting on how he was still just as adorable as then. Kid, to her surprise, smiled, an embarrassed smile, but a smile none the less. Liz and Patty seemed to making a little moment of their own next to them, and suddenly Maka felt weird. Getting to know more about Kid, while also getting some nice joke ammo for the next few years, was nice but now it seemed like she was intruding on a private family moment. She guessed she was, Lord Death and Kid were father and son and Liz and Patty were sisters, Kid had basically taken the sisters in as his own family, so it really was, which became more apparent when Lord Death started to ruffle Liz and Patty’s hair. Maka felt like she should leave, let them have their time together. She knew that Lord Death was pretty much never home and now it seemed wrong to intrude on that time. The scythe meister looked over to the others, who seemed to have landed on the same feeling as her; They needed to leave.

“Well, we better get going.” Soul said coolly, standing up with a stretch, his meister standing with him.

“Awh, already? We are just about to get to the one of Kid’s weapon training.” Lord Death tilted his head at his guests, who were all starting to get ready to leave.

“As awesome as that sounds, Lord Death, we should totally get going. I got lots of weight training to do in the morning.” Black Star said, putting his hands behind his head before looking to Kid. “And Kid, now that I know that you can fight with other weapons, you and me gotta do some training together sometime. I’m real tight with the guy who dispenses the weapons at the training room at the school, so we can get the good ones. It’ll be nice to practice with someone who actually knows what they are doing for once, unlike the dumbasses who normally hang around there.”

“I don’t really have a choice in the matter, do I?” Kid raised a brow and Black Star grinned and gave a thumbs up.

“Nope! So it’s a plan then!”

“I’ll see you then. Good bye, all.” Kid waved his friends goodbye as they made their departure, and they all waved back. Death, his son, and the twin pistols continued to share old memories into the night.


	6. When he's gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers from the Manga! And extension of the scene where Kid finds about his father's demise. This is the sad-ish chapter.

“Could you shut up for a bit!?” Kid screeched at Excalibur, tears running down his cheeks. 

“Of course, you must love yakiniku.” Excalibur said over him, staring off into space.

“I don’t care about whatever nonsense you are talking about!” Kid seethed, baring his teeth at the legendary sword.

“Fool! Well why didn’t you just say so?” The strange little white thing tsked, twirling his cane around. Kid blinked, barely containing his rage through his grief.

“Why are you hear, anyway? Why aren’t you in your cave?” Kid asked, having given up on his big speech, as he was sure Excalibur would ruin it again.

“Why I am here isn’t important.” Excalibur swung his cane out towards Kid’s face, Kid scowled, he was starting to get why Black Star got so angry about Excalibur waving that thing in his face. “What is important is that I do my duty as a proper English gentleman and fill out my old friend’s final request.”

“Father asked something of you? What was it?” The tears in Kid’s eyes were dissipating. 

“He just wanted me to make sure you and the others were okay.” 

“Were you there when he passed? Was he in any pain?” The tears were threatening to come back at full force at the thought that his father might have been in pain, pain that would have been his fault. 

“No, he wasn’t in any pain.” Excalibur said with some sense of finality that made Kid feel better, before… “At least no physical pain, he could have had some emotional turmoil going on, there are all sorts of pain. Which reminds me of a time of my youth, it was 1500’s-“

Kid started to tune the sword out. He took a deep breath, trying to center himself. He had to calm down, he was death now. He had to take care of the world, he was now responsible for life and death, the DWMA, his home… so much, it was overwhelming. As well as the crushing wait of his father’s death, it was so heavy, like he was being crushed by a piano, or something else large and dense. He had to push it, he had things to do… His friends, he had to go see his friends. The others had gone to the infirmary to get proper medical treatment, he was going to go be with them after he talked to his father. He needed to go to them. He turned to leave the death room.

“-And that is why you never starting walking with your right foot. Hey! Where are you going?” 

“I have business to attend to in the infirmary.” Kid said, gliding out the door, leaving the sword alone in the room.

And so Kid started his way to the infirmary. He had to figure some things out, quickly, how to handle the recent events. His father was dead and they had just fought in a major battle, what was he to do? The most pressing matter was the battle, the students and staff were exhausted, injured, and some were even dead. He would have to establish a break for the students and faculty, arrange a memorial for those lost on the battle on the moon. He also had to inform everybody of his father’s death… that was all he could figure in his current state. Kid was too distracted; his brain was still scrambled from all the had been dumped on him. So much was happening so fast, but he couldn’t slow down. He had things to do. It was difficult to think of the all the details of the things he had to do with the weight of his father’s passing crushing down on his mind. Suddenly his brain was hit with a memory, one from after he had been rescued from the book of Eibon. 

_They had just finished discussing their plan of action going forward. Kid and Stein were standing across from Lord Death and Death Scythe._

_“Alright, Stein, you may leave now. Death Scythe, you can leave to, I’d like a moment alone with my son. But don’t you wander off too far, Death Scythe, this will only be a minute.” Death made a shoo motion with his hands._

_“Yes, Lord Death.” The two men nodded before stepping out from the room, leaving the father and son alone. Things were silent for a spell, Kid not knowing what to say and Lord Death seeming to being working up towards something._

_“You’ve grown a lot, you look good.” Lord Death said awkwardly, stepping closer to his son._

_“Yes, I suppose I have. I didn’t really notice myself until I got back and got cleaned up.” Kid nodded, looking down at himself. “But I suppose it makes sense. I was gone for a few months, and it’s not like I was trapped outside of time-space, I was only in a magic book, well, most of the time.”_

_“Most of the time?” One of the holes on his mask contorted to express confusion._

_“Sometimes I would be let out. Gopher would chain to the wall and torture me.” Kid wasn’t looking at his father anymore, but at the floor._

_“Torture?” Death stepped even closer._

_“It wasn’t that bad at first, she only hit my body, but when she discovered my issues with symmetry…” Kid looked very uncomfortable remembering it and Lord Death put the pieces together. They had used his son’s only large weakness against him, heartless monsters. Death sprung forward and hugged Kid. “Father?”_

_“It’s okay, kiddo.” Death said, rubbing Kid’s back. Kid was confused, he was fine? Why was his father offering comfort? He didn’t stop him, figuring that was something that his father needed to do for his own sake. He let his father hold him, embracing the comfort after a minute._

His father wasn’t always there for him, in fact he was normally not there at all, but was there when he really needed him, wasn’t he? He had even partnered briefly with witches to rescue him from the Book of Eibon, something he didn’t think his father would ever do. It had to be uncomfortable for his father to do, not only because of the… personalities of the witches, but because his father had a lot of trust issues with witches. That had to count for something, didn’t it? 

Kid suddenly found himself in front of his friends’ room. He took a deep breath before entering the room. Maka was bandaged up now, her bedside flanked by her father and Soul. Black Star was in the middle of getting his spine and arm properly set and cast, but his cuts and scrapes had been bandaged. Stein was the one doing the setting, of course, and Marie was right by his side. Tsubaki was by Black Star’s side, offering comforting words as Stein wasn’t really being all that gentle with him. Kid’s own weapon partners were milling about the room, they of course had been the first to notice him enter the room. 

“Kid! How did things go with Lord Death?” Liz smiled at him as she walked over to her meister. 

“Yeah, I’m sure he was happy that you’re a full death god now!” Patty bubbled, skipping over to him. “That sure is a cool cloak, where did you get it?” His weapons’ words pushed right into his still open wound, the tears were returning. No, damnit! No tears! He rubbed his fingers at the corners of his eyes to try and suppress the tears, but they started to flow any way.

“Oh my god, Kid, what’s wrong?” Liz rushed over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Did something happen?”

“Father- father, he… um.” Kid choked on his words, shaking his head. Why couldn’t he get the words out? Why couldn’t he stop the tears? Why, why? “Father… Father is… he…”

“He’s dead.” It was Maka who said it. Her pupils sharp, indicating that she was using her soul perception. “His soul wavelength isn’t attached to the city anymore, so either he found a way to detach it, or…” The group looked to Kid for conformation, because surely, surely this couldn’t be true. Lord Death couldn’t be dead! But he was.

“Yes.” Kid whispered, nodding his head.

The shock spread quickly across everybody’s face, but Kid couldn’t see it because Liz had pulled Kid into a hug, which Patty joined in. But if Kid could see, he would have saw Tsubaki and Marie cover their mouths in horror of the news, Stein stopping in his work on Black Star, Maka, Soul and Black Star’s wide eyes, and Spirit’s tearful eyes. Kid started to tremble slightly in his partners’ arms, tears soaking into the fabric of her shirt.

“What happened- How? How did this happen?” Spirit asked, grief clear in his voice. Kid knew that he was close to his father, this would be tough on him.

“Leave ‘im alone! Can’t you see he’s upset!?” Liz shouted, giving her meister a protective squeeze.

“Yeah, he just found out his dad is dead, leave him alone!” Patty stuck her tongue out, blowing a raspberry at them.

“It’s okay, girls.” Kid took a deep breath as he tried to squirm away from the girls’ firm grip. After a second of squirming, they let the reaper go. Kid took a breath and turned to face the group when he saw Marie staring at him with misty eyes. He knew what was coming. Marie let out a whine-like noise and ran over and wrapped Kid in a bone crushing hug, knocking the wind out the reaper, because even being god doesn’t make you immune to Marie the Pulverizer’s strength. 

“Oh you poor, poor thing!” Marie wailed, twisting around so she was swinging him back and forth. Kid wheezed, dizzy from all the motion, unable to respond.

“Don’t shake the boy to death, Marie, we don’t have any death gods leftover.” Spirit said, prompting Marie to sit poor Kid down.

“Thank you.” Kid took a shaky breath, trying to lessen his tears and steady his trembling hands. “I should explain…” Kid took a few more breathes to try to get a better hold of himself. 

“SIT!” Patty yelled, appearing in the doorway with a chair held over her head. Kid blinked, when exactly did she leave? Should he even question it at this point?

“Patty, that’s not-“ Kid was being shoved into the chair by the oldest of two sisters before he could even finish. “Alright.”

“You can tell us what happened after you calm down.” Liz puffed up her chest to try and give her some authority, gesturing a hand to Kid’s sorry state. His eyes were starting to get puffy and his hands were shaking, his breath was quick, and his body looked almost deflated. This along with all the dirty and rumble we covered with from the battle made him look something awful. Kid shook his head.

“N-no… it’s fine, I’m fine, just lost it for a second. I can explain now.” Kid took his deepest breath yet before sitting up and putting up a veil of something that resembled composure before putting on his regular serious face and clearing his throat. “What happened to father was a simple matter of maintaining balance in the world, the world doesn’t need more than one full death god, so when I ascended to a mature death god, Father’s powers transferred to me and he disappeared. It makes sense, it’s the job of death gods to maintain order and balance in the world, and the presence of two full gods of death would throw the balance of power too heavily.” You could almost believe that Kid was okay if it weren’t for the fact that he was still shaking.

“He told me that when you ascended that he would die but I didn’t think he meant this fast.” Spirit mumbled, wiping the tears from his eyes. 

“You knew?” Kid hissed at the death scythe. Spirit could hear the venom in his voice, he looked up at the boy only to jump slightly. If there was one thing that Kid and his father had in come was that they could both look very scary when they wanted to, now Kid had always sort of freaked Spirit out. He glared and looked disinterested all the time, and even when he was little kid, he rarely smiled at him. Freaky. But right now, the scowl on Kid’s face, baring his teeth, and the sharp glare of his eyes, the irises of which had turned so they were shaped as skulls. He had an aura of violence around him that would strike fear into the bravest of men, or at least Spirit thought so.

“Now, Kid, calm down…” Spirit held up his hands in a sign of surrender.

“If you knew then why didn’t you tell me? Especially when you were one of the people pushing for me to do it in the first place!?” Kid shot up from his seat, his weapons tried to push him back into the chair but found it was like trying to push down a wall. “You’re a special sort of idiot, aren’t you?”

“You know how your father is, he was really vague about it. I thought that his power would transfer and he would turn mortal, live a for a while before dying.” Spirit was flailing his arms around now.

“Was.”

“Huh?”

“How my father _was_.” The wind seemed to have been stolen out from his sails. The room got really quiet.

“Kid, let’s go home.” Liz put her hand on his shoulder. “You should rest.” 

“No- I’m needed here. These guys are hurt, I should probably visit the other students to. I’m the new headmaster and it would be good for moral for the students to know that new headmaster cares. I need arrange memorial service for the agents lost in the battle, and my father. Maybe the social secretary could take care of that? Would that be rude? If I had the social secretary plan father’s memorial service? I should plan it myself, shouldn’t I? I also need to get a new library card. I-“

“Are no good to anybody in your current state.” Stein said, not turning away from his work on Black Star. “And you don’t have any power here until your enthronement ceremony.”

“The ceremony! I completely forgot about that.” Kid rubbed his forehead. 

“Your heads not clear, you just found out that your father died. Don’t worry, Spirit and I will handle all of that stuff you mentioned. You need to go home and rest. You’ve had a long day.” Stein still didn’t look up. “And Kid, you need to remember that this isn’t your fault.”

“Right…” Kid nodded slowly, like he was absorbing all the information given to him.

“Yeah, Kid, you should go home.” Soul said, leaning against his meister’s bedframe, having regained his composure. “We’ll be fine here.”

“Wait! The great Black Star has a question!” The blue haired assassin raised his good arm. “If your dad’s being was attached to his cloak and your wearing his cloak right now, does that mean that your wearing Lord Death’s pelt around your neck? That is so badass!” 

“BLACK STAR!” Most everybody in the room scolded Black Star. 

“Well, I’m leaving.” Kid turned on his heel and left the room, his weapons close behind him.

“Ha! The awesome me got him to go home! Aren’t I great?” Black Star grinned, pointing his thumb at himself. 

“Sit still, you monkey.” Stein scolded. “I’m trying to set your arm.”

“Papa, is Kid going to be okay?” Maka looked up at her father, who gave her comforting smile.

“He’ll be fine, sweetheart. We are going to have to help him out, though, this is going to be a rough transition.” Spirit gave her daughter a pat on his head before looking to the door Kid disappeared through.


	7. Breaking the new picnic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lord Death tells Kid he won't be living with him full time anymore.

“Alright, just focus and come to daddy!” Lord Death stood on the inside of his mirror, arms spread-out to receive his son.

On the other side was little Death the Kid, who was four years old and wore a god damn suit. Funny story about that, the suit was actually made especially for Kid so he would stop ripping off his clothes. Lord Death had assumed Kid would grow to dislike the suit, but no, he loved it, in fact, Death was fairly sure that Kid had added suspenders to the outfit. His son sure was something. So now Lord Death watched as Kid stared him down from the outside of the mirror, a look of determination on his adorable little face. 

Right now they were practicing Kid’s magic, or more specifically his mirror magic. So far Kid had run face first into the mirror six times. Death hoped that Kid would be successful in his efforts, a victory in his training would help soften the bad news he had to give the boy.

Up until now, Kid spent the days with his nanny, Miss Samantha, and nights with him, but that was about to change. Kid was a big boy now, he was getting more and more powerful every day, more intelligent, and Lord Death was so busy, he just didn’t have the time to keep going like this, so he had talked to Samantha. They both decided it would be best if Lord Death had a residence built and made her live-in nanny. Now he had to tell his precious little boy that he would get to spend even less time with his daddy. 

“Just pretend the mirror isn’t even there, kiddo, just walk right on through it.” Death clapped his hands and Kid nodded before not walking, but sprinting towards the mirror… and then running right through, propelling himself into his father. 

“I did it!” Kid squealed, hugging onto his father’s not legs.

“You sure did, Kiddo!” Lord Death ruffled his son’s raven colored locks, prompting the little reaper to groan and try and fix his hair, whining about him offsetting his symmetry. “I knew you could do it, and you know what, I think you deserve a reward.” 

“Really?” Kid smiled widely at his father, which made Lord Death smile behind his mask. It wasn’t often that Kid got excited, at least not anymore. Lately Kid had become preoccupied with trying to be the best death god in training that he could be, and as such he hadn’t been smiling nearly as much. In fact, Lord Death was fairly certain that Kid was going to want to start martial art and weapons training soon. He knew he should cherish it while it lasts, because the more Kid trained, the less human he became, the less he would smile. 

“Just in case you succeeded, I had Miss Samantha make us a picnic!” Lord Death chirped, summoning the basket with his powers, a black, woven basket with small silver skull glued to the end of the handles. Needless to say, they were going to have the picnic regardless or not of Kid’s success. 

“Great, Miss Samantha makes the best sandwiches, the same amount of crust cut off each side, equal amounts of each sandwich component, light on condiments, they are truly perfect. And symmetrical to!” Kid’s speech was sophisticated in tone but he was bouncing up and down on his tippy-toes. Death repressed a chuckle at the sight, his Kid sure was something else.

“We also got juice boxes and cheetos, the puffy kind, just like you like.” Lord Death said lightly as he used his death god magic to set up the picnic perfectly as he yanked the blanket from the basket. The picnic settled perfectly on the ground and they took their seats on it.

“I don’t like juice boxes, they’re asymmetrical garbage.” Kid scowled as they picked up their juice boxes, Lord Death only laughed.

“Of course it is when you hold it like that!” Lord Death plucked the box from the boy, turning it around so that the short side was facing him. Kid gasped, eyes twinkling with amazement. 

“It is symmetrical from this angle! Oh, I’m sorry juice box, you’re beautiful.” Kid apologized to his juice box before taking a sip from it. 

Lord Death could barely hold his amusement as he watched Kid eat his lunch. He was sitting up properly and holding his food delicately, like he was trying to be gentlemanly, but he was scarfing down the food like the hungry little boy he was. His tiny little cheeks were full of sandwich and his fingers coated in bright orange cheese dust. Death enjoyed seeing Kid looking like the small boy that he was, instead of the tiny gentleman he was always trying to be, even if he was still trying, if anything the fact that Kid was holding himself like he was eating finger food at fancy party made it more hilarious than anything else. His son sure was something else.

“So, did you have a nice day with Miss Samantha?” Lord Death asked as he sipped from his own juice box. Kid peeked up at him, sucking on his juice. Kid swallowed his juice along with the sandwich still in his mouth wide to answer him, but instead words, Kid surprised himself when a sizable belch came out instead of words. Kid slammed both hands over his mouth, mumbling a tiny ‘excuse me’ to himself. Lord Death couldn’t help but laugh at how red his son’s face was becoming. Kid looked up at his father with large, golden yellow eyes, which started to tear up as Kid threw himself to the ground. Not again.

“Garbage! I’m garbage! If I can’t control this gross body how can I ever control life and death? I’m useless, dirty! Unworthy! I don’t deserve to live!” Kid pounded on the floor and cried. Death sighed, shaking his head. He hated when his son got like this.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Lord Death scooped up his tiny son with one of his oversized hands and brought him close to his chest. Kid shook his tiny little head and Death found himself sighing again. He needed to do something to distract him, to make him feel better. So, what did Death do? He summoned up a little burp himself, bursting out of his nose hole with a burst of steam. “See? It’s perfectly okay.”

Lord Death had expected Kid smile, laugh, or something to that degree, but instead Kid looked up at him, looking absolutely scandalized. Kid was looking at him like he had just watched him kick newborn puppies or eat a baby. 

“Daddy, that’s disgusting!” Kid wrinkled his nose up before hiding his face in his father’s cloak. 

“What, you did it first, and bigger as well. How am I the disgusting one?” Lord Death was very amused.

“When I did it was an accident! You did that on purpose! Disgusting.” Kid glared up at his father.

“If you say so.” Death chuckled, sitting his little boy back on his spot on the blanket. “So, your day?”

“Miss Samantha and I made cookies today. We even used an ice cream scooper to make sure that all the cookies were the same size. It was fun.” Kid smiled, before looking very focused, he held out his hands out and focused. Blackish purple sparks of magic appeared and he grunted a little before a tubware container appeared and fell into his hands. “Want to try one?”

Lord Death couldn’t help but to smile at his son. His summoning ability was getting stronger; he was growing up so fast.

“Of course.” Lord Death took a cookie and continued to eat as Kid continued to talk about his day. Soon enough, both of the death gods had finished their meals, and as such, Lord Death took action.

“So… You like Miss Samantha a lot, don’t you?” Death tilted his head at his son.

“Yes, she’s a very nice lady.” Kid smiled, tilting his head back at him. “Why?”

“Well… um, look, Kid.” Lord Death sighed, taking off his mask. Kid gave a small little gasp at the sight of his father’s face. He’d always wondered about it, or whether or not his father had one at all. He had asked once, and Death had responded with a ‘of course! Why would have I have a mask without a face?’ but had refused to show it to him. Lord Death’s face was hard to describe, he definitely had one, but it was… translucent, like if you touched it your hand would go through it, but it definitely looked like a face. In fact, it looked like Kid’s face, but older. There was slight glow behind his face, which highlighted his yellow irises. 

“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Kid scooted closer to his father. This must be important. 

“Kiddo, you’re going to be staying with Miss Samantha a lot more really soon. I’m having a house built and you two are going to move in to it.” Lord Death said, looking his son deeply in the eyes. “You won’t be spending the night with me anymore.”

Death watched as Kid’s face went from confusion, to understanding, to tears within thirty seconds. Furrowed brows turned into tearful eyes and Lord Death instinctively reached out and held his son close. He shushed him softly, rubbing soft circles in the back of his little one’s head with an oversized thumb. 

“Wh- why?” Kid sniffled into his father chest. “Did I do something bad? I’ll promise I’ll be good! Please don’t get rid of me!”

“Hey, hey, it’s not like that at all.” Death lifted Kid’s little chin up to look him in the yes. “I love you every much, and I’m very proud of you and your progress so far. That’s why I’m going this. You are getting so big, and Daddy is so busy that he can’t keep watching you at night like this. I’m so sorry, Kiddo, but it’s necessary. This means you’re a real big boy now, which means you can really start to train now.”

“I… I can, really?” The young reaper’s eyes shined as his tears started to dry slightly. That was quick. His son was so quick believe him, also very melodramatic. “Even weapon training?”

“Yes, even weapon training.” Lord Death sounded amused now, glad that Kid had been quick to recover. Sometimes Kid just wouldn’t listen to him and throw the worse fits.

“With a chain scythe?” Kid’s eyes sparkled at the idea of a weapon he could hold in both hands. Lord Death’s amusement grew.

“Yes, with a chain scythe, and many other weapons, and more good news, I will still be around to teach you stuff. I’m going to help you with weapons training and I’m going to be personally teaching you death god martial arts, so you see me for that, and you can visit whenever you want. You can still summon… what did you call it?” Death pointed at his son’s hand. 

“Beelzebub!” Kid chirped, summoning the bike from his hand. The bike had training wheels, but Lord Death knew for a fact that they turned into tiny rockets. Lord Death also had a sinking feeling that Beelzebub would be turned into something a little less childish as Kid got older. 

“Yeah, you can come and see me on Beelzebub, just remember to tell Miss Samantha.” Lord Death gave Kid’s head a pat and Kid smiled and nodded. “Now, would you like to know more about the house?”

Kid agreed eagerly and then Lord Death summoned the plans up. He and Kid poured over the plans, explaining in detail how he was making it symmetrical and what he was going to fill all the rooms with, including a training room and various other hobby rooms for any possible thing Kid could very want to do. Kid decided maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.


	8. Weapon Training and Lunch, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lord Death and Spirit comes over to the mansion to watch Kid's weapon training and lunch.

“Are you sure you want to come along? It’s only weapon training and lunch.” Lord Death asked his scythe as they made their way to the Gallows. 

“Yeah, it sounds like fun. Plus, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen Kid around, I’m starting to miss the little bugger. He’s cute, not as cute as my dear, precious Maka, but cute.” Spirit grinned as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t have anything better to do, Kami has taken Maka to see her grandparents… They don’t like me very much.”

“They don’t like you because you cheated on their daughter.” Death had very little sympathy for his death scythe. 

“Details, details. Besides, I want to see if Kid is really as talented as you say he is.” Spirit smirked as they walked up to the door. 

“Well of course he is! He is a natural at Death God Martial arts, and when I visited him three months ago his weapons training was going well. He’s so gifted, but of course he is, he’s a young death god. I was the same way when I was young.” Lord Death opened the door. “Kiddo! Death Scythe and I are here!”

“Father!” And down the hallway dashed young Death the Kid, with his instructor trailing behind him. “You came… And you brought Death Scythe.” Kid had never been overly fond of Spirit, and the look on his face said as much, but Spirit never seemed to notice this fact and grinned widely at him.

“Yeah, I wanted to see if you’re really the little master your dad says you are.” Spirit patted his head, prompting the little boy to smack his hand. 

“Don’t touch the hair.” Kid mumbled as he ran his fingers through his hair to make it symmetrical again while Spirit tried to wave the sting off of his hand. Kid was strong, Spirit would give him that. 

“He’s really particular about his symmetry, Death Scythe, you know that.” Lord Death’s tone sounded like he was scolding a child. Why was he using that tone on him? Kid was the kid here!

“Right.” Spirit sweat dropped, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Alright, are we ready to go?” Kid’s instructor grinned, walking in from around the corner. “I’m glad we have some guests today, Kid has been improving rapidly, so I’m happy you’ll get to see it, Lord Death and…?” The instructor eyed Spirit, asking silently for his name.

“Death Scythe.” Spirit shook his hand.

“Ah! Great, you should really see this, since you’ll be wielded by this little champion one day.” The instructor patted Kid on both his shoulders, an action that looked awkward, but was clearly born out of experience dealing with the little symmetry freak. He then looked to Lord Death. “And sir, I’d like to talk to you again about getting some stronger dummies for the training room, or at least bolting them to the floor.”

“Is that really necessary?” Lord Death asked as they started their way towards the training room. “Surely my precious Kiddo isn’t causing that much damage, he’s just a little boy.”

“Your precious Kiddo has kicked a hole in four dummies this month, we still haven’t replaced the last one.” The instructor shook his head. “He’s getting too strong for these dummies, he’s not an ordinary boy, he’s the son of a god, you know that better than anyone else.”

“Yes, I suppose I do… I’ll order some new ones tomorrow.” Death nodded as they entered the training room.

“Alright, Kid, let’s go, it’s time to start.” The instructor jogged over to the wall of weapons and grabbed a scythe off the wall. Spirit noted that there were two walls of weapons, each identical to each other in contents, making the room look symmetrical from the door. This kid really didn’t mess with symmetry, did he?

“Do we have to start with the scythe? I hate the scythe.” Kid shoulders slumped as he made his way to the center. “It’s so unbalanced.”

“Yes.” Was the short response as Kid was handed the scythe. The weapon looked far too large in the tiny boy’s hands, but he didn’t seem to mind.  
Spirit thought the stance Kid took once the instructor stepped back was strange looking, but when he looked to Lord Death, he seemed very proud of his son. 

“You go, Kiddo!” Lord Death cheered, clapping his oversized hands together, making a big noise. He recognized the stance Kid was taking as one of the death god martial art stances he had been teaching him. Him taking this stance means he was starting to mix the weapon train he was getting and his martial arts, it was a wonderful thing to see.

Kid whirled around the scythe in one hand before rolling it over his back to the other hand, where it was twirled a few times before Kid took it in both hands. Even then, the way he held it was strange, he was still in that strange stance, his back bent back slightly, one hand higher than the other. He was holding the weapon delicately, like he would break it if he held on too hard. It was then that the instructor came at Kid with his own weapon, a short sword. For the first minute of the fight, Kid was mostly on the defense, using his scythe’s handle to block, hopping backwards every once and awhile to avoid a stabbing attack, then pushing forward to regain ground. Kid was smooth and delectate in his movements, but he had a look of seriousness that looked out of place on his tiny face. Spirit was confused, was this all he had to offer? He thought that Kid was some sort of prodigy? Spirit looked up to Lord Death, who still seemed happy with what was going on.

It was then that the fight took a turn; Kid turned slightly and hit the instructor’s shoulder with the heavy side of the scythe, distracting the instructor long enough for Kid to sweep his legs, causing the man to drop his weapon and fall to his hands and knees. The young death god then went to his side, raised up a leg, and then hammer kicked him to the ground before shoving the butt of his scythe against his neck to keep him down. Kid looked up at his father.

“Did I do that right?” Kid asked as he let the instructor get back up. Spirit opened his mouth to start to sing his praises, because that was amazing, but Lord Death started first.

“You did great, kiddo, but your stance was a little wide and if you want to get the most power out of a hammer kick, you need to raise your foot higher.” Spirit blinked widely at his boss. What?

“Yes, Father, maybe we can work on some stretches to work on my limberness.” Lord Death gave Kid a thumbs up in response.

“Alright, Kid, go practice attacks on the dummies.” The instructor said and Kid gave him a bow. 

“Yes, Mr. Yang.” Kid said, running towards the dummies while Yang went and stood by Lord Death and Spirit. 

“He’s been using the martial arts you taught him, he’s really been kicking my butt.” Yang smiled. “He’s got a fighting spirit to.”

“He’s improving rapidly.” Lord Death nodded, you could he was smiling by his tone. “And he is naturally talented.”

“He’s half your size.” Spirit said when he finished gapping at what had just happened. 

“Yeah, but he’s skilled, I’m sure you’ve seen tons of tiny kids around the school that could totally destroy adults.” His eyes were watching Kid, but his mind was clearly with the conversation at hand. “Like that blue haired little puffball that is constantly doing martial arts all over the school building, I’m pretty sure I saw him doing pull ups on one of the schools cones last week.” 

“Black Star! Yes, he’s skilled as well, I can’t wait to see what he does. He’ll do something important, I’m sure.” Death nodded, Spirit remained confused.

“Eh, I don’t get it. Kid and Black Star are doing all this crazy fighting, my Maka is just starting preschool and learning to read well. Boy, am I glad I had a girl.” Spirit wiped imaginary sweat away. 

“Now, now, don’t underestimate her, she’s still young. She could still choose to follow in her mother’s footsteps, and she’s only four, she could still be a weapon.” Lord Death pointed out.

“My precious little Maka will never be a weapon.” Spirit stuck his nose in the air. “She’s a princess.”

“I’m just saying, one day you could be walking down the street, holding her hand, and then her arm could turn into a scythe and chop off your forearm.” Death’s cloak moved like he was shrugging. Spirit just gave him a horrified stare. 

“Father, look, I removed the dummy’s head!” Kid said, lifting the head in the air with both hands like it was a trophy. 

“Good job, Kiddo!” Lord Death bounced, giving his son’s a thumbs up.

“Kid! That’s the second time this week!” Mr. Yang ran over, taking the poor dummy head from the boy. Spirit was suddenly acutely aware that most of the dummies had their heads reattached with glue or duct tape. He raised up his collar slightly to make his neck feel a little safer. “Go and grab the throwing stars.”

The rest of the practice was fairly mundane, they did exercises with throwing stars, first with Kid trying to pin Yang to the wall, and secondly target practice. Then came sword training, which included a spar and some different stance practice, after that came the chain scythe, which Kid went a little nuts with. It had started off well enough, Kid switched between different death god martial art stances, practicing some stab moves, sparing briefly with his instructor before jumping in the air, tossing one of the scythes and lodging it within one of the high up ceiling beams before swinging across the room like a monkey before kicking a whole straight the chest of one of the dummies, with Yang lamenting the fact afterward. After removing his foot, Kid stabbed one of the dummies and used all his strength to grab one end with both hands and swing it around and knocking two others over. 

“Do you really have to keep doing that, Kid?” Mr. Yang sighed, rubbing his eyebrows with thumb and pointer finger. 

“It’s fun.” Was Kid’s only response as he went and pulled one side of his chain scythe out of the chest of a dummy. “It’s time for gun practice now, right?” Yang seemed to deflate even more.

“Yes, that’s right.”

And so gun practice began. Yang pulled out some disks and a slingshot while Kid went and got his rifle off the wall. Spirit was again brought to attention how large these weapons looked in little Kid’s arms. Kid stood at his mark, and the instructor stood at his, all without a word, like they were doing some unspoken dance. Mr. Yang pulled back a disk in the slingshot. 

“Pull!” The disk flew through the air and was then shot out of the air. “Great, Kid, you hit it first try.”

“I was off the center by an inch. We’re doing it again.” 

“Pull!”

“Three centimeters. Again.”

“Pull!”

“Five centimeters. Again.”

“Pull!”

“Two inches, disgraceful! Again.”

“Pull!”

“Four centimeters. Again.”

It was becoming clear to Lord Death that if he didn’t intervene, this would go on for a while. His son’s perfectionist nature would take over and they would go on forever. 

“Hey, Kiddo, why don’t we go eat lunch? I’m sure Samantha has finished making lunch by now, it’d be rude to keep her waiting.” Lord Death bounced slightly, raising an oversized finger. 

“But rifle practice-“

“You’ve done great today, Kid, I’ll clean up here. You go eat with your dad.” Yang gave him a thumbs up. Spirit seemed to finally catch on to what was happening.

“Yeah, we can’t stay here for too much longer, your dad is a busy guy, Kid.” Spirit said, hoping that would convince him. Kid lowed the rifle. 

“Okay…” Kid nodded, going and putting his gun away before running towards the pair. “Let’s go eat lunch!”

Just as he was at his father’s side, Kid held out his hand a summoned Beelzebub, who was now a slick looking skateboard, from his palm before hopping on it and riding past them. Lord Death went along and followed his son but Spirit froze up, mouth hung open. 

“Wait, what was that!?”


	9. Weapon Training and Lunch, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lord Death and Spirit comes over to the mansion to watch Kid's weapon training and lunch.

“Where did that come from?” Spirit gapped as he scrambled behind Lord Death and Kid. Kid looked up at him from his relaxed position on his skateboard, leaned back with his thumbs in his pockets. 

“Beelzebub, he’s my skateboard.” Kid was giving him that ‘you’re an idiot’ look again, it was a very familiar to Spirit. Kid had been giving Spirit that look since he was an infant, and Spirit doubted that Kid would be stopping any time soon. 

“He- they- it, it came out of your hand!” If the death scythe was paying attention to Lord Death, he would see the incredible amusement that had spread across his face, having already figured out what was about to happen. He also would have noticed the swirls of magic licking at the death god’s back. “It’s rolling on its own!”

It was then that the most mischievous smirk Spirit had ever seen on a small child cross Kid’s face. Spirit was now very afraid.

“That’s not all that’s special about it.” Beelzebub’s wheels turned into little rockets and Kid rushed forward, flying into the air if the high ceilinged hallway. 

“It flies.” Spirit gasped in disbelief as his arm was grabbed. He looked up at his boss, who had summoned his death rockets and whose mask had contorted into a look the death scythe recognized very well. It was the look that Lord Death made when he was about to do something stupid, and was just getting flashbacks to the time they got bored and somehow managed to crack Death’s mask while jumping from the windows in the Death Room… don’t ask. 

“Come on, Spirit, looks like it’s a race to the dining room.” And Spirit found himself being pulled along and Death zoomed forward after his son.

The two death gods flew next to each other, neck and neck as they turned the corner to go to the dining room, either not hearing or ignoring Spirit’s screams of terror as he was yanked around behind them. They were having a lot of fun, Kid was happy to get to play with his father, and vis versa. 

Kid had always liked the feeling of wind through his hair, even if it risked making him asymmetrical, and flying on his skateboard was the perfect way to experience the feeling. He remembered when he had discovered the room in the house for skateboarding and the like, it had ramps and the like in it, and of course he hadn’t known at the time what it was, but Mrs. Samantha’s husband, well he was her boyfriend at the time, Tim had later told him what the room was for and introduced him to skateboarding. Kid had picked up it up quickly, even resorting to changing Beelzebub’s form. His father seemed pleasantly surprised that he had picked up such a sport, and this little race just cemented in his mind that his father approved of it. Kid had been worried for the longest time that his father wouldn’t like it, it wasn’t very gentlemanly after all, in fact it seemed to be a hooligan sport of sorts. He had also been listening to pop music with Samantha and Tim lately, which was even less gentlemanly, but Kid really liked it. He liked the heavy bass that a lot of pop songs had, they made songs have good rhythm, and rhythm was like the symmetry of sound. He hadn’t told his father that yet.

A minute into the race, the pair reached their destination and halted to a stop before the crashing into the dining room wall, but unfortunately they weren’t quite prepared and the sudden change in velocity and were thrown to the floor. Things were silent for a few second… before Kid burst into a fit of giggles.

“That was sick!” Kid giggled as he picked himself off of the floor. Lord Death was pleasantly surprised to hear Kid use such relaxed language. His son was usually so guarded. 

“It sure was fun.” Lord Death got up, before looking to his death scythe, who was frozen in terror on the floor. “Whoops! Looks like we broke Death Scythe.” Kid nodded as he straightened up his suit and brushed off the dirt, regaining his usual composure. He walked over to the man lying on the floor and prodded him with his foot. 

“Get up.” Kid gave him soft kicks to the side, more like a prod, really, to try to motivate him to stand. Kick. Kick. Kick.

“Hey, killer, leave the poor guy alone.” Kid looked up to see Samantha standing in the doorway, holding all their lunches and a grin spread across his tiny face. 

“Hello, Samantha.” He greeted, stepping away from Spirit politely, giving the man opportunity to see the nanny. He got up faster than Kid ever believed he could and popped over to her with a flirty look on his face. 

“Why heeeelllloooo there, beautiful. Where have you been all my-“ Before Spirit could either comprehend what was about to happen or finish his cheesy line, Kid leapt out the air like a tiny superhero and kicked him in the face. 

“Stay away from my nanny, you creepy sex pervert!” Kid huffed, looking down at Spirit, who had a lump on his cheek and nose coming from his nose. Kid crossed his arms, looking indignant. “She’s married.” He added a final detail. Spirit rubbed his sore face, glaring up at the boy from the floor. The tendency for people in the death family not to warn you before they doled out punishment was really starting to task on his nerves.

“Do you even know what sex is?” Spirit tried to mock, a thing he wouldn’t do with any small child but Kid. Kid always knew stuff he wasn’t supposed to, once when Kid was a year old, he called Spirit a dickweed, which Death thought was hilarious. Spirit didn’t really expect an answer to his mockery, because Kid was only five, surely he wouldn’t know.

“Sex is when a boy puts his penis inside the girl’s vagina.” Was Kid’s straight forward answer. Spirit gapped at little boy as Lord Death went and sat at the table like nothing was wrong and Samantha laughed at the situation that was unfolding. Meanwhile, Kid had started to do some awkward hand motions, sometimes switching sides, you know, for symmetry. “And he thrusts until he finishes and then the sperm goes to the-“

“PLEASE STOP!” Spirit hastily covered Kid’s mouth. Kid looked confused. “How do you know that?”

“I told him.” Lord Death answered from the table and Spirit’s head swung around to face him so fast it’s a surprise that he didn’t hurt his neck. 

“What?”

“We were talking about his future, y’know, reaper lessons, then he asked me were life comes from, so I told him.” Lord Death shrugged. “I don’t see the big deal; Kid is a smart boy.”

“He’s five. He’s supposed to be innocent, he’s a little boy.” Spirit was floundering, it would have been funny if it wasn’t annoying. 

“I’m not a little boy, I’m a big boy, and I’m almost six. Besides, I’m still innocent, it’s not like he showed me porn-“ Spirit’s eyes were practically saucers.”- or told me anything like the creepy sex stuff you do. How could I ever hope to have control over life and death if I don’t know where life is born? It’s not that big a deal.” Kid rolled his eyes. Death Scythe was such a tool sometimes... hehe. Tool. He then crossed his arms and glared at his father as he continued. “But Father still won’t tell me where I came from. He only told me that Death God’s don’t reproduce like humans or animals.”

“You’re just a boy, you don’t need to know where you came from. Innocence and all that.” Lord Death waved a hand to bat the statement away. “Now come and eat lunch.”

“Yes sir.” Kid nodded, going and taking his seat next to his father. He could tell it was his because Samantha had set it up symmetrically for him. That made him smile.

Meanwhile, Spirit was still on the floor, having seemingly given up on ever getting up and was bleeding on the floor, pondering how one of the driving forces of people was something so small to the two gods. He wasn’t sure what life even was anymore. 

“Alright, Kiddo, you better eat up so you can take your nap.” Samantha smiled, patting Kid on the exact center of his head, an action that was accomplished through years of practice with the boy. Kid pouted immediately.

“Samantha, I told you, I don’t need naps anymore. I’m a big boy, a reaper; I don’t need naps.” Kid crossed his arms, looking indignant. 

“Oh, you don’t? Then what is that you were doing yesterday afternoon?” Lord Death suppressed a laugh, he liked Samantha, she had spirit.

“I was resting my eyes.” 

“For two hours?” 

“Alright, you two, cut it out.” Lord Death intervened before Kid had a chance to argue back. Samantha had the good sense to look sheepish.

“Right, I’ll go clean the kitchen. Call me if you need help scrapping your friend off the floor.” She gave a little half bow before shuffling from the room.

Lord Death was smiling at her under his mask. He was glad he had her around to watch Kid, her husband to. He didn’t think that Kid would like Samantha so much, she was relatively relaxed person, and so was her husband. Heck, Tim had been the one to show Kid skateboarding, and Kid loves to do that. If Lord Death had to guess, their relaxed personalities helped balance out Kid’s neurotic one. Plus, Kid admired them, probably because their goofishness reminded him of Lord Death’s own mannerisms. Lord Death only hoped that when Kid grew up that he mellows a little bit, but in the event that he didn’t, he also hoped that whatever death scythes that came through the tubes in the future would have personalities that had a similar effect. Lord Death shuddered to think what would happen if Kid got his hands on a death scythe that was even half as neurotic as him.

Lord Death’s thoughts drifted back to Samantha. That poor woman had to be so busy. When Lord Death first had the Gallows built, he equipped it to the teeth with staff, but within the first year Kid had dismissed most of them. The cooks didn’t make the food to his standards, the maids didn’t clean correctly, the list goes on. Now all that was left was the gardening staff living in a shed in the back yard, Kid’s tutor, and Mrs. Samantha. Even then, Lord Death was sure Kid was going to dismiss his tutor any day now in favor of self-education, which would be fine if Kid didn’t have so little human interaction to begin with. He wondered if he could convince Kid’s weapon instructor to move in… probably not. 

“So, Father, how have things been going at the academy?” Kid asked, breaking Death from his thought loop. He looked over to see Kid looking at his with big yellow eyes as he took a bite of sandwich.

“Things are great! Just this week, a group of three star meisters took down a small coven of low level witches.” Lord Death said as he ripped off a corner of his sandwich and popped it in his nose hole. Kid didn’t really need to know that one of them had died. “And this year’s graduating class is going to be huge. Things are looking fantastic!”

“That’s great, Father.” Kid smiled up at Lord Death. “How has this year’s weapon scouting been going?”

“Same as always, though this year we got a lead on something special. We think he found a guillotine.” 

“A guillotine? But one of those hasn’t appeared since the 1800’s.” Kid’s eyes were wide with wonderment. “How would one even use a guillotine as a weapon?”

“I’m not sure, but I can’t wait to find out! The last guillotine to pop up refused to take a meister, or attend the school at all, and it’s looking like this one might not be any better. He’s really difficult to track, and we don’t even have a name on him yet. All we have is he’s a blonde and his name starts with a J. It might take a year or two to find him, he doesn’t appear to be a people person, but that is just like a guillotine, really.” Lord Death shrugged. 

“I’m sure you’ll find him.” Kid nodded, taking the last bite of his sandwich. 

“It’s not really me doing the finding, Kiddo, but thank you.” Lord Death ruffled his hair, causing Kid to pout and fix his hair, but not say anything. He’d never shout at his father. And then Kid yawned. “Oh? Are you tired? You had a big day of training today.” 

“No…” Kid shook his head, rubbing the sleepy away from one of his eyes, which was a dead giveaway that Kid was, in fact, tired. It was then that Lord Death realized Kid had all but finished his lunch. He had been spaced out for a long time, hadn’t he?

Death scooped his little boy into his arms, cradling him close. He was met with no resistance. Kid only cuddled into his shoulder. Death’s non-existent heart gave a flutter at the action and he carried his Kiddo away from the dining hall and towards his room. 

This reminded Lord Death of when Kid was just a little toddler and still spent the nights with him. Kid would fall asleep on the floor and Lord Death would carry him to his bed. He was so little and adorable back then, and it wasn’t even hat long ago. Why did he have to grow up so fast?

“Mrs. Samantha, scrap Death Scythe off the floor, we’ll be leaving after I put Kiddo to bed!”

“You got it, Lord Death!”


	10. Day off, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lord Death takes a day off.

Spirit loved being Lord Death’s personal weapon, he really did. It was a great honor, as only one death scythe got that honor at any given time. He got to spend extensive amounts of time around the most powerful thing alive, the one who controlled death itself, and got to be his close friend, his confidante. Lord Death had told him information about his past and about the kishin under the school that only a few select people got to know about every generation. But right now, Lord Death was starting to get on his nerves.

Spirit had always been grateful that Lord Death had let him wander away from his post by his side frequently, which had allowed him to be around his Maka a lot, but now Maka was in school, and so he was with Lord Death more often. So they talked a lot. It’s the topic of conversation that was bothering Spirit right now. No matter what they had started talking about, Lord Death would always spin the conversation around to his little son, Death the Kid.

Now, it wasn’t that Spirit didn’t understand Lord Death’s situation with Kid, he actually felt bad for him. Kid was only seven years old, but he was being raised by his nanny and her husband, not Lord Death. Lord Death missed Kid, even for a death god, it wasn’t quite natural to be separated from their young as early as Lord Death had. Lord Death had told him that the case of Kid was already special, as normally when siring an heir, they are made young, so that they can learn about things like fear and balance naturally and aren’t overwhelmed, but never as young as Lord Death had made Kid. He had admitted that he had gone a little overboard, but even then death gods normal keep their children into their late teens, when they became their own independent God of Death when they connected their second line. Because of all the extra responsibilities Lord Death had piled on him with the high population and the managing of the school, he had to hand over the responsibility to someone else. Spirit knew that this bothered Lord Death a lot more then he would ever bother saying out loud, and Spirit couldn’t really blame him. He couldn’t imagine handing Maka over to someone else.

Ever since Kid had turned four and went to live with his nanny in the Gallows, Lord Death had slowly and progressively been talking about Kid more and more over the last three years, which lead up to right now. Lord Death was babbling on about something. Kid this, Kid that, while using his mirror to display some old memories of Kid. Spirit snapped.

“You know, Lord Death, it really seems like you really miss Kid, why don’t you take a day off, go spend some time with the little guy, I’m sure he’d be over the moon.” Spirit gave a tense smile, hoping to distract the god.

“Hm? You know full well I can’t do that, I risk enough the few times a year that I go watch his weapon training. It’s fine, I’ll get to see him in another two days for training in reaper combat arts.” 

“All due respect, Lord Death, but I don’t really think it’s that you can’t, but that you won’t.” Spirit sucked in a breath and held it, knowing full well what was coming.

“Come again?” There it was, Lord Death’s serious tone. Ah! Makes Spirit shiver.

“I know you can’t leave Death City cause your bonded to the city to keep the kishin down or whatever-“

“It’s a tad more complicated than that.”

“-, but it’s not like you can’t leave the academy at all. You can walk around the city all you want; you just don’t want to. You’re scared to leave the academy because you’re afraid of someone breaking in a reviving the kishin. Well, right now everything is really peaceful. The school is packed to the gills in security, you’ve got things planned out and scheduled for days, you can afford a day off to spend with your son.” Spirit was firm, a rare form for Spirit, but not only was this to preserve Spirit’s sanity, but it had to do with a family, and Spirit held family over everything else. “I’m sure Kid misses you as much as you miss him, it could do him some good.” Spirit braced himself for the rejection. 

“… You have a point. Yes, I think I will. Tomorrow I’ll head over to the Gallows and spend some time with my boy!” Lord Death twirled a finger in the air, his voice back to its normal cheerful self. Spirit sweat dropped. He really never could tell what his boss was going to do.  
The next morning in the Gallows Mansion…

Lord Death had decided to open the day by making breakfast. That was thing dads did, right? He had decided on pancakes, because he was fairly certain he could make them symmetrical for his little boy. At the very least, he could use some cookie cutters that had symmetrical shapes. Only the best for Kiddo. Now he just had to figure out how to make pancakes. He hadn’t cooked since he had Kid in his charge three years ago, and even then it was only dinner, Samantha had made him breakfast and lunch. Lord Death didn’t normally cook, on account of he didn’t have to eat, although he did enjoy some tea and cookies every once and awhile, just because they were good and he missed the days when he still had a physical body to eat with, but he was fairly certain that kid didn’t want tea and cookies for breakfast. 

And then, just as Death had finally started to mix the pancake batter, Samantha and Tim entered the kitchen, Samantha dressed in her night gown and Tim in some flannel pants and a robe. The couple laid eyes on Lord Death, stopped in their tracks and immediately started to right themselves.

“Lord Death, what are you doing here?” Samantha chuckled nervously, adjusting her robe so that she was showing a little less cleavage. Lord Death was confused, had he forgotten to tell him he was coming over? Opps.

“I decided that I was going to take the day off to spend with Kiddo! It’s been such a long time since we’ve had some quality family time. I hope this isn’t a problem.” He tilted his head at the nanny, who shook her head vigorously. 

“No, no, no, no problem at all. Just unexpected is all.” Samantha smiled. “I’m sure Kid will be happy you’re here.”

“Fantastic! And I’m sure you’ll appreciate the day off.” Lord Death said as he went back to mixing, an action that looked awkward with his giant hands. “I know Kiddo can be a handful.”

“I’ve gotten used it, really, plus ever since he dismissed his tutor, he’s been spending a lot of time in the library reading.” Samantha smiled, leaning against the counter. “He’s like the itty bittiest bookworm. It’s sort of adorable.”

“You should probably inform him of the schedule, Sam-I-Am.” Tim said, seeming to have recovered from the shock and was heading towards the fridge.

“Right, so Kid’ll be up in around fifteen minutes, after that I normally watch cartoons with him till ten, but that is something I impose on him so he can have something sort of normal in his life, so he might resist a bit. After cartoons, he goes and reads till lunchtime. Would you like me to make lunch?” She peered up at his mask, and he seemed to be considering it. 

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.” 

“It’s no problem. Anyway, after lunch I usually have him do something to help him burn off the energy from lunch, let him skateboard or practice with his weapons. Sometimes we explore the house and find a new room to do something in, but that’s really only if he is in a good mood. After that he might try to go read some more, it really just depends. Sometimes we watch TV together in the afternoon, if Kid isn’t too busy. Dinner is at eight, then Kid usually tries to go to sleep, but it normally takes him awhile.” Samantha finished. “But that is only for normal days like today, then there are his reaper lessons with you and weapons training with his teacher, but you don’t really need that just for today. He might be willing to change it up for you, but he can be sort of particular, but I’m sure you know that.”

“That all sounds good.” Lord Death nodded, pulling out a pan to put on the hot coil. When he did that he noticed that Tim had taken a nice little spot right by his wife, and so Lord Death said the first thing that came to his mind. “So, are you two thinking about having children yourselves?” There was absolutely no tact used here.

“Wha- woah! Why do you ask?” Tim chuckled as he and Samantha both turned bright red. 

“You seem like a cute couple, very friendly, close, reproduction seems like the next logical step.” Lord Death shrugged, still using a tone that didn’t reflect the sort of intimate question he had brought up. “Besides, it’d be nice if there were some extra little kiddos running around here with Kid.”

“Well, we have thought about it, but we decided to wait until we move out of here, y’know whenever Kid is old enough to take care himself. We feel bad enough living here for free.” Samantha rubbed the back of her neck, tilting her head sheepishly.

“Nonsense! And you aren’t living here for free, your living here as payment for taking care of my son for me.” Samantha almost brought up that Lord Death did, in fact, pay her a small sum for her services for legal reasons. “An exchange of goods, just like in the good ol’ days! None of that money nonsense, things were so much simpler back then. I remember back when they first started to use paper money to represent measures of gold, boy did that get out of-“

“Right, but still, we’d feel bad if we had a bunch of kids under your roof, just doesn’t feel right.” Tim smiled, waving a hand. “We are fine the way things are now.”

“Yes, as I understand it you are saving up money from your job to buy a house for you and Mrs. Samantha, aren’t you?”

“Yes sir.” Tim normally didn’t use such formalities like ‘sir’, but he felt it was necessary with Lord Death. “I figure that by the time Kid can take care of himself in another year or two, I can put us up somewhere really nice. Maybe somewhere near LA.”

“That’s a wonderful plan.” Lord Death said, pouring some batter onto the hot pan. 

Just then the sound of wheels rolling against hardwood floor sounded and soon little Kid appeared, rolling into the kitchen on Beelzebub in his black, silk pajamas with tired eyes. Beelzebub was rolling on his own and Kid looked like he sleeping on his feet. 

“Mornin’ Samantha, Tim.” Kid mumbled sleepily, not even looking up, but when he did turn his head to look and saw his father, who had turned his head at the arrival of his son. Kid’s eyes flew wide open and Beelzebub disappeared in a cloud of smoke beneath him. Upon landing on the floor, Kid straitened his slumped posture and ran his hands over his clothes to make them as neat and symmetrical as he could. “Father, what are you doing here.”

“Oh, Kiddo, would you relax. I’m here to spend the day with you. Surprise!” Lord Death waved his hands, almost dropping his spatula in the process. “Oh, just look how adorable you are in your little pajamas! You are just the cutest!” 

“Thank you, Father.” Kid blushed a little, relaxing slightly and shuffling towards his seat. After he took his seat at the kitchen island in the dead center of the room, he looked up with a hopeful twinkle in his eyes. “You are really staying the whole day?”

“Yes siree-bob! Death Scythe thought it would be a good idea, because we haven’t spent some quality time together in awhile, you know how he is about family matters, and I agreed with him.” Lord Death turned back to flip the pancakes. “It really has been too long.” He hummed and Kid got a thoughtful look on his face.

“I don’t mean to be rude, Father, but… I don’t think I remember us ever spending a full day together.” Kid finished his statement by looking down at the table. Samantha and Tim started to look and feel awkward.

“Oh…” Lord Death hadn’t really thought of it, but he supposed they hadn’t spent a full day together since Kid was an infant. “I suppose you wouldn’t. That’s unfortunate, but I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Yes.” Kid nodded, looking up from the table and smiling. “Your making pancakes?”

“Yes, I thought it would be easy enough and easy to make symmetrical for you. Only the best for my little reaper.” Lord Death nodded at himself, patting the pancakes down. “After this we can go watch your morning cartoons.”

“Surely you wouldn’t want to do that, they would only bore you.” Kid shook his little head, his hair flopping about. If Lord Death had eyebrows, they would be raised. When did Kid’s speech get so fancy pancy? Had he been speaking like that for a while and Lord Death just not noticed? He knew Kid was smart, but…

“It’s no problem at all, Kiddo. Today is about you, buddy.” Lord Death smiled, tilting the pan over and sliding the fluffy cakes over onto a waiting plate. “Besides, it’d be nice to see what they are putting in the children’s programing these days.”

“Okay…” Kid nodded again before looking over at Tim. “Does this mean we aren’t going to practice skateboarding today?”

“Oh crap!” Tim hissed, jumping into alertness. “I forgot about that.” Tim had the day off today, and had promised Kid that they would practice skateboarding in the ramp room after lunch.

“Why that sounds like amazing fun, could I join you two? Maybe you could show me some of those groovy skateboarding tricks, or whatever it is that you do.” Death said as he bounced over to give Kid his breakfast. Tim looked down at Lord Death’s obvious absence of feet and raised a worried brow.

“Eh, I’m not so sure.”

“It’ll be fine! I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your fun and it could be a good thing to learn, and what better way to bond with my son then partaking in one of his favorite sport-type things.” He said in a matter of fact tone as he firmly planted a bottle of syrup in front of Kid. 

“Really? You’d really skateboard with Tim and I?” Kid’s eyes were glittering with anticipation of his father’s answer. 

“You betcha, Kiddo! I told you, today is all about you, so we are going to have some fun.” 

“Thank you, Father, today should be fun.” Kid smiled up at Death, reminding him of when Kid was just a little boy and he would smile at him like this all the time. And to his further amusement, Kid’s eyes lit up even further when he looked down at his breakfast. “Oh, you’ve made them perfectly symmetrical! This is just wonderful! Beautiful!”

Lord Death then watched his Kiddo spend the next thirty minutes trying to find a symmetrical way to eat his breakfast. Oh boy.


	11. Day off, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lord Death takes a day off.

“Alrighty, Kiddo, what are we going to watch?” Lord Death said as they entered the living room. Kid looked up at him with still tired, morning eyes. 

“I believe Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends is on by now.” Kid said before climbing up onto the couch. “I think you’ll like it. It’s very bright and colorful.”

“If you say so, Kiddo.” The reaper nodded, picking up the TV remote and fiddling with it, trying to turn the TV in and eventually doing it. “Maybe you should tell me about the characters and show.”

“Well, the whole show takes place in a world where imaginary friends actually exist, and what happens when their creators don’t need them anymore. As the title of the show implies, they go to a foster home where they can be adopted. The main characters are Mac and Bloo; Mac is a boy who hasn’t outgrown his imaginary friend yet, but he had to drop him off, so he visits him every day after school so he can’t be adopted. Mac is a smart boy, sort of boring, really, but is a typical young boy. Bloo is loud and obnoxious; you’ll know him when you see him, he’s a blue, door shaped blob. I find his symmetry and simple design fascinating, it’s a shame it was wasted on such a horrid personality. There is a whole cast of side characters, but you could figure them out yourself, I think.” Kid wiggled into the couch as the TV announced the show was about to say so. “I think you will like the character of Wilt, he’s a kind hearted character with a natural inclination towards apologizing. While his design is asymmetrical, I think his bright, bubbling personality is more than enough to make up for it.”

Lord Death nodded as the shows intro started and after a few seconds he was bombarded with upbeat music and bright colors. He was shocked for second before adjusting and actually getting a look at the characters running around. This show was in a much different in style than anything Lord Death had seen before; were they not hand drawing cartoons anymore? Death looked down at his young son to see a small smile had entered his little face, which was surprising considering how stoic his son had been lately. Lord Death was suddenly reminded of the first time he had watched a cartoon with his son.

It was nine in the morning and Kid had already managed to tired Lord Death out. He was out of a nanny again so he had to watch Kiddo, the only thing was that he couldn’t figure out what Kid wanted from him. Kid was fussing and wiggling around, clearly unhappy, but Lord Death had one idea what was wrong. He had been fed, changed and cuddled, so what was wrong? Was he bored? Was that the problem? He knew that Kid was getting bigger but was he finally big enough to feel the awfulness of boredom. What was it that parents did when kids were bored?

TV! They put on the TV! Lord Death reached out a hand a TV and couch raised up from a puddle of shadows, catching little Kid’s attention. He blinked at the objects with his large, curious yellow eyes, his tiny mouth hanging open in a tiny ‘O’ shape. Lord Death sat the boy down on the couch, propping him up on some pillows, prompting Kid to start to whine and throw a fit.

“Oh, you calm down.” Death tutted, turning on the TV before picking Kid up and plopping himself down on his lap before changing the channel to some children’s network. Kid whimpered and whined for a bit, sniffling into his father’s cloak before his caught the screech and his sniveling stopped. Lord Death rubbed his thumb over the boy’s soft little head as he calmed down, hypnotized by the bright colors on the screen. Suddenly one of the characters on the screen fell and Kid started to giggle, which brought a smile onto Lord Death’s face. He should probably work on the finer details of child play, he couldn’t just pop Kid in front of the TV all the time. 

Lord Death looked to the side at Kid, who had squished himself against his father’s side and was staring intently ahead at the TV. His little kiddo had gotten a lot bigger since then. His thin, baby fuzz hair had grown into a mop of well-kept raven black hair and his wide, adorable eyes had grown into something a little harder, very stern, handsome even. And he was only seven! It seemed like so much less time had passed and Kid acted even older than he was. He was strange child, but Death wasn’t really sure what he was expecting from a young reaper. Death’s father had always said that he himself was a strange child, but he didn’t really understand why he thought that, everything he did had made sense to him. Lord Death imagined it was a similar situation here, but regardless it seemed that Kiddo was growing up nice and fast.

“Father, are you okay? You seemed to have zoned out a little.” Kid was looking up at him, concern glimmering in his eyes. Lord Death tilted his head at him. 

“Oh? No I’m fine, I was just thinking about how cute you are!” He bounced slightly in his seat and Kid’s cheeks turned red as concern became twisted into embarrassment.

“Father, do you really have to call me cute? I’m not baby anymore.” Kid looked down at his bare little toes, cheeks a blaze with embarrassment. 

“Just because you’re a big boy now doesn’t make you any less an adorable little cuddle muffin.” The grown reaper pinched the younger one’s cheek, increasing his bashfulness. 

“Father, please.” Kid’s eyes shifted his amber eyes back and forth. “Samantha might hear you.”

“The woman has known you since you were an infant, I’m sure she is perfectly aware of how much of an adorable little creature you are.” Lord Death said, missing the point entirely. 

“Maybe we should go to the library to read, it’s almost study time.” Kid said, scooting himself off the couch, which showed that he wasn’t really suggesting it.

“If you say so, Kiddo.” Lord Death sprung up from his seat. “You can sit in my lap and read, just like when you were a wee little thing.” He suggested as they started down the hallway.

“No offense, Father, but I think that it might be a little odd if I read a book on Egyptian history while sitting on your lap.” Kid rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand before instinctively rubbing it again with his other hand.

“Oh… Okay, Kiddo, if you say so.” Lord Death deflated slightly, but continued along.

Kid felt bad when he saw his father’s shoulders sag in disappointment. He knew that his father was looking forward to all this and he felt bad having spoiled it. Opps. He should do something to make it up, something cute… Kid looked at his father’s oversized hands, which were draped strangely at his sides, and it came to him. He reached over and grabbed his father’s oversized hand with his own, he really only managed to take hold of a finger, but the thought got across. Lord Death perked up and started to swing his hands a little, which flung Kid’s whole arm around. Kid felt like rolling his eyes at his father’s childish enthusiasm, but restrained himself out of respect. His father was so silly some times. 

The pair made their way to the in home library, planting themselves down on a small, vintage couch with red seats and wood work that had been painted black to match the aesthetic that Kid had taken to. The book Kid was reading was already sitting on the decorative side table by the couch, one of the two tables, anyway, Kid of course had one on each side of the couch and had sat a random book of the same size on the opposite table. Lord Death decided to read that book, and he was happy to. It had been so long since he had read a book. Luckily enough the book Kid had selected for the other table was a fictional one, Lord Death preferred fictional stories, primarily because he had been around for most of written human history, he didn’t need to read it, he lived it. Though, he had to admit that historical fiction was a favorite of his, mostly because historical texts were hardly accurate and seeing a spin on historical events was fun. After opening his own book up, Death looked over to Kid, who had opened his book up to his place in the book and was reading very intensely. Lord Death smiled, his Kiddo was very cute when he was focused, his tiny brows knit together and his lips pursed together. Lord Death gave a nod before turning to his own book.

The rest of the afternoon went off without a hitch. After reading for a few hours they went for lunch. To Lord Death’s surprise, they were having rice balls. Samantha had then explained that Kid had seen some of the oriental students eating them and had become enthralled with them and they now had them a few times a week, Kid could even make them himself. Then came skateboarding, and that sure was something. For one thing, seeing a man with no legs stand and try to balance on a skateboard was hilarious, Kid and Tim had told Death that much with their laughter at the sight. It had taken awhile for Lord Death to stop constantly toppling over, and even then he never really took to it like Kid did and he ultimately sat to the side for the last hour and watched Kid practice his tricks. It was fun.

After that things got even more mundane, with them all settling down and watching a movie and strangely enough, Lord Death didn’t mind. Sure, he would have preferred to do something exciting with his son on his day off, but when you are constantly surrounded by strangeness it’s sort of nice to do something normal. Kid seemed happy to, which made Lord Death happy. After the movie, Lord Death even got to put Kid to bed, something he hadn’t done in years, and he couldn’t be happier.


	12. Extended scene, anime edition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small continuation of the ending of the anime.

The group burst into laughter as Maka tossed herself off the column she was standing on, leaving Soul to scramble slightly to catch her. The huffing and puffing and subsequent bickering that followed Soul’s catching of his meister had only made the laughter heighten… until something snapped Kid back into reality and…

“Damnit! Look at all these souls! This just won’t do!” Kid flailed at the realization that Asura’s exploding had scattered all the souls he had consumed over the years. Liz muttered something along the lines of ‘here we go’ as Kid summoned his skateboard and hopped on, his reaper’s instincts kicking and telling him that he needed to take care of the situation. The human souls needed to be reaped at once, Asura’s soul needed to be taken care of as well. Kid flew into the air, twirling with that weird flare he likes to have before halting and taking a symmetrical stance on his skateboard. His arms moved in a smooth, graceful movements as his eyes glowed with purple death god magic, before his arms finally settled at being spread out on either side, fingers posed to complete his task. All the souls funneled into Kid’s hands, including the kishin’s, which Soul took notice of.

“Hey, that was ours!” Soul hollered as he saw the red, angry soul get sucked into Kid’s hand.

“The proper disposal and care of kishin souls are to be strictly handled by reapers!” Kid scolded as he sucked up the last of the souls. The way Kid looked at Soul with glowing, iris-less eyes and spoke with such authority was another one of those reminders that Kid wasn’t human. “Besides, they aren’t gone. Only reaped, so I can put them to rest later, when I’m back at full strength.” Kid rubbed his chest over where he was stabbed.

“My question is that if you can do all that, why do you need Patty and I as weapons?” Liz crossed her arms. 

“Practicality.” Was Kid’s simple, one-word response to a very important question. “No time for that, I have to get this kishin soul to fathe-“

Kid’s eyes went wide when he realized what he was saying. His father, Lord Death, he didn’t know if he was still alive or not. And with that thought, Kid darted away, not hearing his friends calling for him. Meanwhile, all the observers in the Death Room darted to the sides as they saw a black and white blur they knew to be Death the Kid so they didn’t get smashed with the front end of the boy’s skateboard when he barreled into the room. Low and behold, Kid was there in under and minute and the moment he saw his father alive, standing, Beelzebub dissipated under his feet and Kid landed on the ground, thankfully on his two feet but not his steadiest landing ever, which is understandable considering he was stabbed in the chest a little over thirty minutes ago.

“Kiddo!” Lord Death said at his son’s unsteady landing and the pair locked eyes. 

“Father.” Kid breathed, rushing forward to his father, he looked like he was going to hug his father but he seemed to notice that they had company and restrained himself. “Father, you’re alive.” Kid stood in front of his father, catching his breath. He looked like he might cry, and knowing Kid that was very likely. “I- I thought that you- He shot at- and you- you-“ 

Lord Death leaned forward and hugged his son, trying to ease his frazzled nerves, not really caring that others were there. Kid reciprocated the hug and the two just stood there for awhile. The others in the room didn’t really know what to do either and just stood there, awkwardly. 

“It’s okay, Kiddo. I’m just glad you’re okay. You and your friends were facing a kishin after all, you could have perished.” Lord Death rubbed Kid’s back a little and just as soon as this little family moment started, it was over, and Kid had composed himself and stepped away from his father. 

“Yes, I’m sorry I worried you.” Kid said, rubbing the tears from his eyes. He wouldn’t deny crying, because anyone who knew him knew that for all his hard-headness he would cry at the drop of a symmetrical hat. “The mission was a success though. The kishin Asura was ultimately defeated by Maka Albarn when she punched him in the face with all her courage. Though I will admit I am fuzzy on some of the details of the fight as a whole.”

“Run it by me from to top.” Now everybody was watching what seemed to a be a business meeting and that was somehow more awkward then the intimate family moment. Were they just pretending that didn’t happen?

“When we first entered the bubble we started to attack with team resonance. Progress was slow, painfully slow, but we seemed to be weakening him until Soul collapsed. After that Black Star and I tried attacking him individually while Maka helped Soul. If I’m being honest, I don’t really understand what went on there or how she woke him up, but by the time I had regained consciousness he was awake. I decided that I was going to try to shoot Asura with a charged beam, hit him with all I had, if you will. I told Black Star to back me up, protect while I charged the shot, which lead to a pointless argument that ultimately led to Black Star doing what I wanted to anyway. I started to push my limits to charge a shot and it was then that Asura stretched his pointer finger and stabbed me through the heart.” Kid seemed unfazed by the statement, as did Lord Death, but everybody else was more than a little shocked, with exception of Stein, who if he was surprised at all it certainly didn’t show on his face. “Now something certainly happened after that, but by the time I had started to wake up Asura was back to his normal form. I don’t have any idea how this happened, you’d have to ask Black Star. Speaking of Black Star, he was unconscious when I was waking up, I don’t know how that happened either. Maka fought the kishin, she grew blades for some reason? And then she punched him in the face and he exploded. After that, I reaped the souls that resided within the kishin that were released upon his death, along with his own soul. Speaking of which, I believe this belongs to you.”

Kid genuflected before his father, stretching his arms forward, splaying his fingers out in the ‘I love you’ sign language before allowing Asura’s soul to get sucked from his being and popped back into this plane of existence. And for a moment, there was silence, as the kishin’s large, red, angry soul pulsed, floating in front of the god of Death. A red glow cast across Kid and Death’s features as they briefly made eye contact, seeming to soak in the fact that this was over, this thing that had brought so much conflict to their relationship was gone, with everybody else having a similar moment of relief. Lord Death lifted up a hand and the soul was sucked away. 

“Thank you, Kiddo, you did a good job, and I’ll be sure to talk to talk to your friends about what happened whenever they get out of the infirmary. They are going to the infirmary, right?” Lord Death tilted his head. 

“If they are smart they would, it was brutal fight.” 

“So only Maka, then?” Lord Death joked, earning a chuckle from Kid. 

“I’m sure she’ll see that everybody is safe.” Kid said, putting his hands in his pockets. “And I’ll be sure to put these other souls to rest once I’m back at full power. Shouldn’t be but another hour or so.” 

“Why don’t you let me see that wound of yours?” It wasn’t really a question, Lord Death prodded at the hole in Kid’s jacket to get a better look at the damage. There was a circular scar over his heart, the lines of which were twitching a swirling, looking to be rapidly healing, which would be weird and gross if it wasn’t Kid we were talking about here. “Ah, it’s coming along well, are you feeling okay?”

“A little light headed, maybe, and very tired, which is to be expected, but I’ll be fine. It’s not the first time that I’ve been stabbed in the chest, and I doubt that it’ll be the last.” Again, using a very nonchalant tone for what was actually being said. 

“Not the first time!? What kind of crazy missions do you send Kid on!?” Spirit said with a sudden burst of energy, flopping around like some sort of insane fish. 

“Death Scythe, I hate to kick you while your down but I don’t think you of all people should criticize someone’s parenting skills.” It was like letting all the air out of a balloon, that how to best describe Spirit’s reaction. Lord Death paid him on attention and turned to Nygus. “Is he well enough to leave? I believe me and my son have some things to talk about.” Lord Death also turned to the others, who took that as their cue to get the fuck out of there. Chrona gave Kid a little wave before they left the room. 

“Of course, Lord Death.” She gave a little bow, leading Spirit, who was still recovering from that blow to his self-esteem, towards the door. “Leave that IV in your arm until that bag is completely empty and you should be fine.” And they were gone.

“Soooo.” Lord Death teetered back and forth, unsure how to go forward. Kid’s recent distrust of him and a subsequent fight they had when Kid was forced to go on a mission was the first big issue they had. Before that it was all small OCPD meltdowns and reaper training, how in the holy heck was he supposed to handle this mess?

“Should I sit down?” There Kid was, getting them on the right track!

“Yes! Let’s do that!” And so they sat down. “Alright, so we both messed up.”

“Both? From my perspective it was all me. I should have trusted you more. You had nothing but good intentions and I did nothing but doubt you. It was stupid, and then you almost died.” Kid was refusing to make eye contact, staring blatantly at the floor. 

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Kiddo, I should have trusted you more. You’re my son, and I was sending you on important, highly dangerous missions without telling you the whole story. That’s a bad idea even if you weren’t my son. Giving people blind orders without explanation almost always breeds fear and distrust, that’s leadership 101. The fact it took both of us almost dying for me to see that should probably be an indication that your old man isn’t the brightest.” Lord Death put a hand on his shoulder, and Kid finally looked up at him.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Suppose not… I’m sorry.” 

“I’m sorry too.”

… 

“Arlighty then! Glad to have that whole ugly mess behind us! So, how about that giant robot fight? Your ol’ dad sure does have the moves, eh?”

Some things never change.


	13. Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based of the anime. Lord Death tells Kid to go get another Magic tool, it doesn't go well.

Kid breathed a sigh as he stepped up to the Death Room door. Though his father hadn’t said specifically what he was being called to the office for, but Kid already knew what it was about. Lately whenever he was called the Death Room it was about a Magic Tool. Magic Tools are the only missions that Lord Death doesn’t like to give over the mirror. His father was becoming paranoid like that, and it was becoming increasingly clear to Kid that he wasn’t trusted by his father. He could understand Sid, Stein, or any of the teachers or death scythes, really, not being told. While they were important to the overall mission, they were humans, and more importantly they weren’t his son, like Kid was.

None of the investigating that Kid really helped either. From what Kid had found out, all these Magic Tools were all the very dangerous and powerful, and at this point he couldn’t be sure that his father could be trusted with them, something just felt wrong about everything that was happening. There was too much he didn’t know, and so now on top his father’s lack of trust in him, but he didn’t trust him anymore either. He wasn’t even sure if the older god knew about his spying or not. He was fairly certain that JB had probably told him, but Kid couldn’t be sure.

“Kiddo! Glad you made it!” His father chirped as Kid stepped into the space. Kid knew that he was making an attempt to be friendly, things hadn’t been very… hospitable lately between that pair. It was tense, and Death was trying to help, and Kid could appreciate the effort, but it didn’t really make Kid feel any better. It was just a smokescreen to distract him.

“What do you want, Father?” Kid said, unflinching, and Lord Death deflated at the uncaring tone and cold look in his son’s eyes.

“Now, Kid, I know you aren’t happy with me, but do you really have to be so harsh? I am your father; you could at least say hi.” Lord Death pouted. Couldn’t Kid see was trying? Or did he just not care?

“You called me here for a reason.” Kid came to stop in front of his father and looked up at him. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to know what it is.” It was clear what Kid was saying: Say it, say you want me to get another Magic Tool.

Lord Death’s shoulders tensed but at Kid’s unrelenting determination to stay angry with him. Why did his son have to be such a hard head?

“We believe that we have found the location of another Magic Tool.” Lord Death said, entering a serious tone that did nothing make the situation any less tense, especially when he knew what would come next. “If we are right, the Magic Tool should be in the city of Sarcophagus.”

“Sarcophagus? The cursed city that’s inhabitants disappeared, and was so dangerous that you had giant, hastily made walls around it?” Lord Death might if smiled at the fact that Kid knew such an obscure thing a year ago. Also if Kid didn’t look super pissed off.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to tell me why we need this particular Magic Tool? Or even what it does?” Kid glared, his patience worn thin. “Or why you can’t send someone else? Sid, maybe? He’s a strong meister and as much time he seems to spend in here with you, you must trust him.” Lord Death restrained a cringe at the word ‘trust’, trust was a hot button issue with Kid right now. “You do seem rather eager to put your only son in harm’s way.”

“Kid, you know it’s not like that, I care very much for your safety, but no human who has entered that city has come out alive! Sometimes an arm or something is found outside the wall, but that’s not important. This is a job for someone above humans physiologically and that’s you.” Lord Death turned around and Kid knew what was about to happen; his father was about to spit out some fortune cookie wisdom to distract him. “Being a leader means tough choices, sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to.”

“Like what?” Kid pressed, determined not to let go.

“Like your friend Black Star.” Black Star? Lord Death sensed his confusion. “I’m sure you’ve noticed how unstable Black Star is becoming. His wavelength is becoming strangely like his father’s. The Star clan was dangerous group, and by the end of their existence, several of them weren’t even human anymore, they were more like demons, Black Star’s father included. We spared Black Star, hoping that he could do better, but if he is really intent of following the same power hungry path as his father then he will eventually need to be taken care of permanently, most likely by you. Now, I still have faith that Black Star will find his way, but it’s a strong possibility that it could happen.”

“I can’t do that! Black Star might be a pest, but he’s my friend! I can’t kill him!”

“That’s what I’m saying, Kid, sometimes you have to do hard things, bad things, to protect others or themselves, to people who are your friends. Sometimes you’ll have to kill someone you like if they are a threat to the world.” Sometimes to have to rip your son’s skin off, suck out all his body fluids and trap them in said skin. “You don’t always have a choice either. When you are in charge of the world like we are, you just have to do things, even when you don’t like them.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.” Kid stomped a foot, pushing even further. “We can change the rules if we want to, we control the balance of the world, have dominion over death itself!”

Both Kid and Lord Death were getting really worked up. You could fry eggs on their clothes with how angry they were getting, but this had to happen. After so many years of such a distant relationship between the two, this was bound to happen eventually. Now, the distance wasn’t really a bad thing, they weren’t quite human after all, and they still loved each other like a father and son should, but in recent years it had twisted the dynamics into a more headmaster/student type of thing. Lord Death saw his son when he taught him about being a reaper or when he gave a mission, and almost never any other time, as Kid’s visits got more scarce when Kid started attending school, but even before that they were few and far in between. Their relationship had grown a progressive coldness as Kid got older, learned more, got out of the house and learned that most parents live with their children, see them every day. This whole ugliness with the Magic Tools had just poked the sleeping bear that was sitting between them, and things were about get ugly.

“The rules are the way they are for a reason, Death, you know that!” His father was calling him by his first name, this wasn’t good. “I am your father, and you will do as I say and go retrieve the Magic Tool!”

“You are hardly a father!” Kid snapped, clenching his fists. “I lived with a nanny for years, you never come home, we haven’t even shared a home since I was a toddler! You’ve hardly been there for me, at least Death Scythe tries to be there for Maka, even if she doesn’t want him there, he at least tries.”

“I’ve told you, Kid, I can’t leave the school.” Lord Death seethed, trying to ignore that his heart had just been shatter into thousands of tiny pieces by his son’s words.

“Bullshit.” If Lord Death had eyebrows, they would be raised. He been aware that his son had a bit of a potty mouth, but he had never felt compelled to curse in front of him before. “The Gallows is within the city’s boundaries, you could visit anytime, you choose not to.”

“We are not talking about this right now!” Lord Death exploded with rage, his voice dipping back into it natural, deep state. “As your father and headmaster, I command you to go retrieve the magic tool! This is an order!”

The pair glared at each other for a while, breathing heavily and unwilling to break eye contact. After a few moments, Kid relaxed, and his hot glare was replaced with a cold look of indifference.

“Yes, Father. I will go tell Liz and Patty and we will leave in the morning.” Kid turned on his heel we to leave. Lord Death, having calmed down himself, tried to lighten the mood before Kid left.

“Goodbye, Kiddo! Try your best!”

Kid blatantly ignored his father’s kindness and left the room. Lord Death bowed his head slightly. This was bad.


	14. Nightmares and fears, or lack there of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little Kid has a nightmare and goes running to his father.

When you are an existence, a force of the world governing over life and death, things like time didn’t really much, because when you are such a presence, you exist outside of time, you just are. But Lord Death didn’t need a good sense of time to know it was too early for his three-year-old to be knocking on his mirror. What on earth did the little squish need at this hour? It had to be at least two in the morning, y’know, probably. He shuffled over so he was in front of mirror and saw his little Kiddo there, shuffling around and looking uncomfortable. He instantly knew what was wrong. Kid had had a nightmare, an unsettling experience for the child. And of course, because this was Kid we are talking about, the situation was… odd. Because of the circumstances of Kid’s birth, Kid was naturally void of all fears. The only thing Kid might be afraid of was the concept of death, an unescapable fear that Lord Death had himself despite having unloaded all his fears on his first son. Because Lord Death gave all his fear to Asura, when Kid was made there was none left for him, and so he was made small and inexperienced so that he could properly learn things like the value of life, how to fear, and other important things that Asura never learned because he was created whole and experienced. With that all in mind, Kid still had nightmares, but his reaction was… different then a normal child.

When most children awoke from a nightmare they felt a whole flurry of emotions, the most prominent of which being fear, and they would scream and cry and go running to their parents’ room to sleep in their bed; but when Kid had a nightmare, there was no screaming or crying. He would wake up with a gasp and stare at the ceiling of the Death Room, full of anxiety and unease, but never fear. Eventually he would become so uneasy that it would be impossible to go back to sleep and he would end up running to his father. Lord Death sighed and stepped through the mirror.

“What was it this time?” Death asked as he plucked his precocious little boy off the floor.

“I don’t really remember… I think it had something to do those immortal things you told me about last week. They creep me out, they don’t die, their presence upsets the balance of world.” Kid half buried his face in his father’s cloak, still remaining some sort of eye to mask contact. “Nothing should upset the balance and symmetry of the world.”

“I know, they freak me out too, Kiddo.” Lord Death rubbed Kids back, before taking the opportunity to try and make a joke to cheer the boy up. “What’s worse their usually super weird looking to.” Kid smiled a little bit, but didn’t chuckle.

“Father, that’s not funny.”

Time to take the joke even further.

“It’s true. I know of one that is a werewolf, so he’s got pointy teeth, and he has a tattoo over one of his eyes and not the other.” Eh, what’s a joke without a little bit of truth?

“Ewww!”

“I know, Kiddo, it’s very ‘ew’.” Lord Death chuckled, sitting down on his sons bed. “So what do want to do this time to do to sleep, do you want to me to read to you or do you want to just lay down?”

“Let’s lay down, if you don’t mind.” Kid’s face was now fully buried in his father’s cloak. Lord Death nodded and laid down on the bed, still rubbing an oversized thumb over Kid’s tiny back. Things were quiet for a few minutes, until Kid spoke up again. “Father… today Miss Samantha took me to the park. I played with a few of the other children, and when I did a spider went and crawled up onto a little girl’s hand and she panicked. When I asked her why she acted that she said it was because she was afraid of them. She has a fear of spiders and then she looked at me like I was weird for not knowing what that was, it only got worse when I stated that I don’t have any such fears. “Everybody is afraid of something.” She said. Father, why don’t have any fears?”

Nope, no, no, no, nope! Death was definitely, most certainly not explaining this to his toddler. He was too young; he didn’t need to know about that whole mess. What was he supposed to say? This wasn’t in any parenting manual that Lord Death casually glanced at when Spirit had brought them to work when his own wife got pregnant.

“Eh… Well, Kiddo… You see, it’s like…” Kid was looking up at him with those sweet eyes of his. Damnit. “It’s… just part of being a reaper. Reapers don’t have any need for petty things like fears. It’s just one of those things that make you special.”

“Really?” He was buying it… good.

“Yeah, now why don’t you close those little eyes, we wouldn’t want you all tired when Samantha comes for you in the morning.” Kid nodded and cuddled back into his father’s chest. After a few minutes Kid was asleep again, safe from nightmares in his father’s arms.

Lord Death breathed out yet another sigh. Crisis averted, for now at least.


	15. Sleepover part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang has a sleepover, Lord Death crashes the party.

                It had been months, close to a year, really, since the defeat of the Kishin at the hands of Maka’s soul resonance team, and even though so much time had passed, they still sucked pretty hard at serial resonance, at least when compared with their classmates. The practice of serial resonance was still practiced at the school, because according to Lord Death ‘Why would I have you go from a higher form of combat to lower one?’ but everyone also knew it was because missions were still incredibly dangerous, because even though Asura was dead, the mess he had made was still around. There was higher witch activity and kishin eggs were plentiful. So, that left Maka, Soul, Black Star, Tsubaki, Death the Kid, Liz, and Patty where they were now. After months of practice, they still had issues resonating as a group, if Stein were to request that Soul not play his soul piano they break apart after a few minutes. And so, Stein gave them an ‘extra credit’ assignment, to have a sleepover, get to know each other better as a group. You might not NEED to understand someone else to resonate with them, but it sure didn’t hurt.

                But of course the place that was chosen for the sleepover was the Gallows, if only because it was huge. Kid was not a happy camper.

                “I don’t even see why I need to be involved in all this, as I recall I have never created any problems with the resonance.” Kid pouted as he put the finishing touches on the snacks.

                “Of course you haven’t, you’re a grim reaper, I’m pretty sure you could resonate with a potato.” Liz rolled her eyes as she picked up two bowls of chips, because of course there had to be two. Damn reaper brat. Kid gave the sassy weapon a glare. “You can be as great at resonating as you want but it’s not going to mean shit if Maka and Black Star aren’t, and it couldn’t hurt you to practice.”

                “I suppose.” Kid sighed, picking up the trays of brownies and sauntering out the kitchen door and toward the entertainment/living room, Liz right behind him. Patty was sitting on the couch in the living room, bouncing up and down and shuffling through their selection of movies. Patty was a lot more excited about this sleepover then Kid and Liz, but of course she was, she’s Patty. A knock was heard at the door.

                “Someone’s at the door! Someone’s at the door! Our friends are here! Yaayyy~.” Patty leaped, punching at the air and leaping up and down with new vigor.

                “I’ve got it.” Kid said, jogging out of the room and over to his front door. He opened the door to find his friends standing there. Kid was a little surprised that Black Star and Tsubaki were here on time, but he supposed they had all planned on coming as group. He was slightly more surprised that Black Star and Tsubaki were already in their pajamas, though Tsubaki looked slightly embarrassed about it, which told Kid that she was likely forced into doing so by Black Star.

                “Where are your PJs, dude?” Black Star snorted as he leaped into the manor, Tsubaki shuffling in after him.

                “Black Star, it’s six o’clock and we are likely going to staying up past midnight, I’m not going to be in my sleepwear until at least eight.” The truth of the matter was that Kid always got into his pajamas at eight and refused to interrupt that pattern. Liz and Patty were already in their night gowns.

                “I’m with Kid, so uncool.” Soul scoffed as he and Maka entered.

                “Whatever! The mighty Black Star does what he wants and is always right.” Black Star declared before taking a flying leap into a wall, then bouncing off said wall with a flip before dashing down the hall.

                “Don’t put your filthy feet on my perfectly clean walls!” Kid fussed, rushing over to the wall in question and inspecting it. It was clean, thank goodness. The others let out a sigh of relief when Kid seemed to clear the wall. They did not want to start out the afternoon with a Kid meltdown. Kid had gotten better about his whole OCD thing in recent times, but it was definitely, almost unfortunately, still a thing.

                “Black Star is really excited about tonight.” Tsubaki smiled as she, along with Maka and Soul, walked further in to the room. “He likes the Gallows.”

                Kid was one hundred percent sure that Black Star only liked the Gallows because of its massive size. Black Star liked big things. Kid could only hope that his precious home would still be standing after a whole night and morning of Black Star. Between Black Star and Patty the chances of incident or fire was fairly high.

                “I’m sure.” Kid smiled politely and the group made their way to the entertainment room, where Liz was sitting on one side of the couch, looking bored and paint her nails, and Black Star and Patty were having some sort of weird wrestling match. At least it looked that way, but as soon as Patty saw the others enter the room she beamed, kicked Black Star in the genitals, which made him release the hold he was trying to put her in and fall to the floor, and bounded over to their guests (And Kid).

                “Hiiii, guys!” Patty waved as she went from a full sprint to a screeching halt right in front of them.

                “Hey, Patty.” Maka greeted normally as Soul sweatdropped and Tsubaki went to go check on her meister.

                “Sis and I are so excited to have you over, Kid never lets us have people stay the night, this is going to be so much fun.”

                “I’m sure we’ll have fun.” Maka smiled as Soul muttered about something being uncool.

                After everybody had taken their seats (and Black Star stopped being a puddle on the ground.), silence fell over the group. The awkward kind. They weren’t sure how to start. Maka was ultimately the one to break the silence, brave girl.

                “So, how has it been having Lord Death around the house more? He has been coming over more since the Kishin was destroyed, right?” Maka looked to Kid and girls, smiling politely and hoping that she just hadn’t stepped on some sort of conversational landmine.

                “I suppose he has, it’s been fine.” Kid said causally, but Liz had lots more to say.

                “It’s really weird. He still isn’t here regularly, and he generally warns us before he comes, because even he pays for it, Kid’s the one who really lives here. He doesn’t need to eat or sleep, so he pretty much only comes to see Kid.” Liz crossed her arms before rolling her eyes. “And when he does come over, they don’t try to catch up on lost Father/Son time or anything, they just read or go some room in the house to do secret reaper training, or something.”

                “Now, Liz, you know Father is trying but it’s very strange for him to be existing in a world where the Kishin is dead. Besides, we like to read, and I quite enjoy our training sessions. I learn a lot, and besides it’s not like I’m a small child, what do you expect us to do?” Kid rose a brow at his weapon, who shrugged her shoulders.

                “I don’t know; I’ve never had a Dad. I’m just saying, you haven’t lived together for years, the least you could do is play a game of catch.”

                “Well I would, but Kid never was very into the sports.” Lord Death said, drawing everybody’s attention to the god, who had apparently come home. “I tried to skateboard, but that didn’t go so well for me.”

                “Father, what on earth are you doing here?” Kid blinked owlishly. “I told you that I was having guests for the night. Stein’s extra credit, remember?”

                “You did?”

                “Yes, I told you last week it would be Friday night.”

                “It’s Friday?”

                “Yes. Why are you here, you usually let me know in advance when you are coming?” Kid sighed, hoping for a reasonable answer.

                “Well I didn’t think I need to warn you today of all days. What sort of father would I be if I wasn’t there for my son’s birthday?” Lord Death walk/shuffled into the room and patted Kid on the head with an oversized foam hand.

                “Oh? Is it that time of year already?” Kid seemed to accept his answer and there was moment of time where the rest of room collectively rolled their eyes at how awful the pair of reapers were with time before letting what Lord Death said sink in. Then the chaos came.

                “BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY!”

                “Why didn’t you tell us it was your birthday, you ass!?”

                “You have birthday!?” Black gasped and Kid turned to give him a sarcastic response, sassy written all over his face, before stopping, absorbing what Black Star said, and bunching his brows together.

                “Of course I have a birthday. What on earth do you think I am!?” Kid glared. “I exist, don’t I? Why would you think I don’t have a birthday?”

                “I dunno, you just… your not…” Black Star rubbed the back of his neck, and if Black Star looked embarrassed, Tsubaki looked twice as embarrassed for him.

                “Don’t worry about Kiddo not telling you all, he probably just forgot. He’s never been good with time and has never been fond of his birthday, even when he was a wee little tater tot.” Lord Death used his comically large fingers to show just how small he was. “I don’t know why, but he’s always been a big grump about it. If I knew when me birthday was I would celebrate it every year.”

                “It’s such a silly ritual. Who cares how many times I’ve managed to lap around the sun? The path the earth takes around the sun isn’t even symmetrical!” There it was. “Why would I celebrate something so ridiculous?”

                “Because it’s fun, and besides, before long you’ll have existed so long you can’t even remember when you were born, so you should celebrate while you still can.” Death gave his son a firm poke on the top of his head. “Now you even have friends to celebrate with. Soul Eater, maybe you could get us some music started up?” Soul grinned at that.

                “Sure can.” Soul chuckled making his way over to the records.

                “Eh? You decide to start music now, but before you were happy to sit on your butt and let things be boring.” Kid was less than impressed.

                “Eh, before this lame party was just for a grade- “That earned him a glare from Maka. “- now it’s about your birthday. Much cooler.” Soul smirked with his shark teeth as he flipped through the records.

                “Hey, Kid, how old are you now anyway?” Patty asked, and Kid went to answer, but not before Black Star butted in.

                “Yeah, just how old are you anyway!?”

                “As of today, I’m fifteen.” Kid answered calmly, seemly ignoring the assassin’s outburst.

                “You’re a whole year older than me? Bull, we both just hit our grown spurts this year.” Black Star huffed, crossing his arms.

                 “My little Kid always was a late bloomer. It’s like so much of his energy was used developing his talents, that there just wasn’t any left for his body.” Lord Death was patting Kid’s head again. Kid was turning red.

                “You hear that, Black Star, you’ve got a chance at not being a munchkin forever!” Soul teased and Black Star puffed out his chest. Even though before Kid and Black Star finally hit their growth spurts, Black Star still sort of looked like he was ten years old, an average height, muscly ten-year-old. Lucky for Kid, because that fact saved him a lot of teasing from the main group.

                “That’s just about normal for reapers, though, he’ll be fine.” Lord Death bounced on the spot, And Kid pinched the bridge of his nose. Why him?

                “What about the symmetry perfectionist thing, is that a reaper thing? Can we expect that to go away anytime soon?” Liz asked, earning a glare from Kid that only made Liz snicker. Patty has been laughing since Lord Death said Kid was a late bloomer.

                “No, I’m not sure why he does all that.” Lies lies lies. “But in all fairness, I did drop him a few times when was baby, maybe that has something to do with it.”

                “You dropped me!?”

                “Yeah, fifteen times, but in all fairness you giggled and crawled away like you had landed on a pillow fort every time, even when you landed on your head. You were very durable.” Lord Death was tilting his head like he was remembering something, but he straitened up and held his hands up. “Plus, you were so tiny and squirmy and how was I supposed to hold you with these giant things!?”

                “This explains so much.” Liz joked, and Kid was still less than impressed.

                “Well if we are determined to have a party for me now, maybe you should go, Father. Teenaged antics and all that.” Kid said, trying to shoo him away. He loved his father but he would really prefer to get out of this with as little embarrassment as possible.

                “Eh, what? I don’t see why he has to go.” Black Star said, pursing his lips. Kid raised a brow. They were planning something.

                “Yeah, your dad is a pretty cool dude.” Soul grinned as he plucked a record from the selection and twirled is around on his fingers. “Besides, the whole point of this thing was to get closer so that we resonate better. Having Lord Death around could help us get to know you better, plus he can monitor our progress if we decide to practice group resonance.”

                “He has a point, Kiddo, even though one doesn’t _need_ to understand someone to achieve resonance, it certainly helps; and you are a tough nut to crack.” Lord Death gave a Kid a firm poke to the noggin to affirm his point. Kid wasn’t going to fight it anymore, by the time Soul was half way through his dialogue Kid had figured out that the group had remembered the last time they were over when Death was home and wanted more material to tease him with. Kid couldn’t really blame them, a good chunk of why they liked to hang out together was to relentlessly mock each other, whether or not this was normal for teens or they were just a bunch of weirdos, Kid wasn’t completely sure.

                “Fine.”

                “So, Lord Death, what do you guys normally do for Kid’s birthday?” Maka smiled, tilting her head.

                “Yeah, come to think of it this time last year, Kid was gone all day, so you must do something.” Liz raised a perfectly plucked brow at Lord Death. Lord Death didn’t need to have a normal face to know how big he was smiling. Kid was sighing on the inside. It was going to be a long night.


	16. Sleepover part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang has a sleepover, Lord Death crashes the party.

                “Father, do we really have to do this? I’m not a little boy-“ Kid started to plead, well plead might be a little bit of a strong word, but still, but was stopped when Lord Death grabbed Kid’s arm and pulled him over the edge of the couch. The others were bewildered as Kid was grabbed by the torso by his father, resting in his oversized palm. They were even more surprised that Kid seemed to give up on any protest the moment he was dragged over the couch and now seemed incredibly disinterested with whatever was about to happen; but before they could ask about what was happening or really process what was going on, Lord Death reeled back and threw Kid through the air.

                “One!” He shouted as Kid swooshed through the air. The young Death God seemed entirely unimpressed with the height he was throw to, even when the hair on the back of his head grazed the mansion’s impossibly high ceiling. Kid made his descent and landed belly first in his father’s palm only to be chucked back in the air.

                “Two!”

                “Awesome.” Soul chuckled as Kid once again grazed the ceiling.

                “So do you toss him for every year he’s been alive?” Tsubaki asked, her eyes carefully tracking her friend’s descent from the ceiling.

                “Yup! Used be a lot more fun when Kiddo was little and would do acrobatics when he was up there.” Lord Death said before catching Kid and throwing him up in the air without missing a beat. “Three! But he is such a spoil sport now.”

                “Awh, so it’s like birthday spankings, but with tosses, that is so cute.” Liz smiled, watching as Kid’s demeanor went from indifferent to agitated, which made it even funnier.

                “It’s not cute! It’s agitating.” Kid crossed his arms, just as he started his fall back to earth. “He won’t stop. I tried to get out of it two years ago and he pouted until I gave him his way. Childish.”

                “We’ve been doing it since your first birthday, it’s tradition. You love tradition, I know you do.” Lord Death said with another flawless throw and catch. “Four!”

                “That may be true but that doesn’t mean I enjoy being tossed like I’m a small child.” Kid rolled his eyes, still stupidly calm for someone who has hurling through the air.

                “But you love flying through the air.”

                “That’s not the point!”

                Land. Toss.

                “Five!”

                “Six!”

                “Seven!”

                “Eight!”

                “Do a flip!” Black Star hollered up at Kid, having become bored with the situation.

                “Black Star!” Kid glared, but it was too late. All it had taken was once and the rest of the group was invested and a chant was started.

                “Flip! Flip! Flip! Flip! Flip! Flip!” The group chanted, clapping to the beat of the chant, except for Patty who was off by at large margin, clapping twice as fast as the others.

                “When I say ‘do a’ you say ‘flip’!” Black Star shouted, leaping up on the coffee table, legs spread, hand on his hip, finger pointed at the sky. “Do a!”

                “Flip!”

                “Do a!”

                “Flip!”

                They were on the tenth toss. Kid gave in and when he went up for the eleventh toss he did a triple front flip, earning cheers from his peers that tickled his soul and when he went up on the twelfth toss he stepped it up a notch. By the time he was tossed the final time, not only was he actually smiling, but the acrobatics he was performing were very elaborate. He landed on the ground smoothly and everyone clapped, though clapping from the teens in the room might have been slightly sarcastic.

                “See, wasn’t that fun?” Lord Death bounced up and down, tilting his head at Kid as the boy straightened out his suit.

                “I suppose it was.” Kid said, a small smile still on his face as he smoothed his hair back down. “You’ve had your fun now, Father, you don’t have to stay.”

                “Awh, don’t be a fuddy duddy, Kiddo, this could be the last birthday I get to spend with you.” A ridiculously large glove was plopped down on Kid’s head, obscuring it from view. “I want to enjoy it.”

                “Last birthday? You planning on going somewhere, Lord Death?” Soul asked, quirking a brow, the others looked uneasy now.

                “What? Of course not! I can’t leave the city, no, I should be passing soon, just as soon as Kid connects his last line.” Lord Death lifted his glove to get a better look at Kid. “Shouldn’t be much longer, another few weeks, maybe a few months. He probably could have connected it weeks ago, but he really is agonizing over this decision.”

                …

                “What? But your Death, you can’t die!” It was Black Star who had this outburst. Nobody else knew what to say.

                “Well of course I can!” Lord Death was either unaware or ignoring the groups shock. “Nobody escapes death forever, and aside from that I’ve been alive too long, it’s my time. It’s Kiddo’s time to be in charge. He could decide to ascend to a full death god and wipe me out right now if he wanted to. I have no idea why he recedes his lines, he should be practicing with his powers.”

                “I’m weighing my options.” Kid defended himself. “I’m not overly eager to kill you just for power. Also, I recede my lines so that I don’t attract attention to myself. The fuss that they would make at school from such a drastic change would be bothersome. Lots of questions, not good.”

                “Kid, you skateboard on a flying skateboard in a full tuxedo, holding your guns upside down, you attract plenty of attention all by yourself.” Kid gave Lord Death a half lidded look, unimpressed. “I don’t know why you didn’t tell your friends. Your about to become a powerful being that exists outside of space and time, it’s a big milestone in a death god’s life, and you are lucky enough to partners and friends to share it with.”

                “Yeah, Kid, what the hell!? Why didn’t you tell us?” Liz crossed her arms and glared. Kis was getting similarly nasty looks from the rest of the group.

                “I didn’t want to confuse you with all the technicalities of it. We all just got promoted to second star meisters a few months ago, Soul just became a death scythe, you and Patty are well on your way to becoming death scythes as well, things were so busy that there was never really a good time, we are all so busy…” Kid rubbed the back of his neck. “I was going to tell you after I turned you and Patty into Death Scythes, because I’m figuring that I’ll wait until I have proper weapons to turn. Otherwise I’d have to use Soul or Spirit and I’m not really in a hurry to do that.”

**((I really try to put author’s notes mid story, but a feel the need to tell you all that since this chapter follows the anime, the resolution with the witches never happens, so Death Scythes would still be in production.))**

                “What, why not? What’s wrong with me, or Spirit?”

                “Nothing! Nothing at all, it’s just that you have Maka and Spirit would be annoying to have around all day, Liz and Patty are just better options.” Kid shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal, it’s just the natural order of things. Things live and die, old rulers step down and new ones take their place.”

                “You can’t really be so nonchalant about this.” Maka said, pointing an angry finger at her friend.

                “Of course I can, it’s just the way things are.”

                “Kiddo is right, now come on and smile, I’m not keeling over right now, it’s a happy day! We should be celebrating.” Lord Death was dragging Kid by the forearm over to the couch before plopping themselves down on it. “What is it that kids do these days, anyway?”

                “Mostly talk about school stuff, watch movies, maybe play games.” Soul leaned back, excepting that they weren’t going to get anymore straight answers now that Lord Death had set his mind to not talking about it. The others seemed to have come to the same conclusion as well.

                “Oh… that sounds sort of boring.”

                “You should tell us embarrassing stories about Kid.” Black Star grinned and Kid tipped his head back before glaring at the assassin.

                “You aren’t even trying to be subtle anymore!” Kid scowled and Lord Death laughed, patting his son on the back.

                “Now, Kiddo, you can’t really blame them, they did just find out you were hiding things from them-“

                “I wasn’t hiding anything, had they asked, I would have told them.”

                “- it’s normal for them to want to make a fool of you.” Death ruffled Kid’s hair, making the teen sigh.

                “I suppose so.” Kid calmed down considerably. He saw this coming, but what happened next, he didn’t.

                “Oh, I know you what you could do? Remember that time everybody came over for dinner, and after everyone left, you started to project your memories onto a mirror? You should do that!” Liz grinned and Kid died inside a little.

                “Wonderful idea, Elizabeth.” Lord Death smiled, snapping his fingers and summoning a large, full body mirror. Kid was planning his own funeral. “Where should I begin… Ah, I know!” The mirror was a light with images.

                _Lord Death was sitting in his office, reviewing his list of people that were to be dealt with when his door opened to none other than Death Scythe. Death Scythe was looking sheepish, and just a little bit scared._

_“Death Scythe!” The image bounced, indicating that Lord Death was doing his little bounce-walk over towards Spirit. “Where’s Kiddo? Did Miss Samantha want to keep him over night?”_

_“Well… you see I sort of lost him…” Spirit rubbed the back of his neck. In a flash the image on the mirror zoomed up to the Death Scythe and if one was pressed in looked like the edges of Lord Death’s vison in the memory was red._

_“You lost my baby?” Lord Death’s voice wasn’t his normal bubble tone, but his actual, terrifying, gravel-in-a-hubcap-being-tossed-down-a-mountain voice._

_“Well we were walking in and he was holding my hand, and we were passing through the part of the school for the younger NOT students, and then the new teacher’s assistant with the nice rack walked by and she was wearing a low cut top, and… I just stopped to talk to her for a second and he was gone!”_

                Maka was pinching the bridge of her nose. Her dumbass father, she swore… Kid was waiting for the moment when this would become bad for him.

_“You lost my son over a pair of boobs!?” Spirit started to panic more._

_“I didn’t mean to!” Spirit was flailing and pointing in random directions now. “It was just a second and he is so slippery. You know how slippery Kid is, and he doesn’t like me. He’s never liked me. I-“_

_“Shinigami Cho-“ A giant gloved hand reached up to strike the Death Scythe down, then there was a soft knock on the door._

_“Um, Lord Death? I think I have something for you.” A soft, feminine voice calm through the door._

_“Come in.”_

_The door pushed open just a little bit, then stopped briefly, before opening up completely, revealing a female teacher, Miss Stevens, holding little Kid up by his armpits. Kid was naked as the day he was born, smiling at his father and wiggling._

_“I believe this belongs to you?” She said, lifting the boy up slightly, an ever so slight look of mortification on her face._

_“Kiddo!” Lord Death gasped, basically teleporting over to the woman and scooping Kid up, lifting him in the air. “There you are, but where did your clothes go? Did you take them off again? You did, didn’t you, my little naked man?”_

_“They were itchy and asymmetrical!” Kid fussed, having a bit of with the word ‘asymmetrical’, face very serious. “I couldn’t wear them.”_

_“We’ve talked about this, Kiddo, you’ve got to wear clothes, especially in the school.”_

_“But all the students are gone this time!” This time._

_“We’ll discuss this later.” Lord Death cradled Kid up close to his chest; his cloak seemingly coming to life and slithering all over Kid, a terrifying sight until they formed a swaddle, holding him to his father’s chest. Lord Death released Kid from his hands, letting the boy remain snuggly attached to his chest with the swaddle, and looked up at the confused teacher. “Thank you for finding him, Death Scythe lost him. I’m sorry for the state you found him in, though, I’ve been having trouble getting him to keep his clothes on. I’m working on getting a symmetrical outfit designed and made so he might keep it on.”_

_“It’s fine, I understand, my sister’s three year-old can hardly stay in his clothes.” Stevens smiled, raising a hand to wave off the apology. Though her eyes did briefly glance down with a look of distaste at Spirit, who was a quivering ball on the floor._

The image on the mirror warbled as the memory came to an end, just as the laughter had started to dye down. Kid seemed to be trying desperately to sink into the couch and disappear. But it wasn’t over yet, oh no, not yet.

                “And now he won’t step out the door without wearing three layers.” Soul quipped with his usual cool attitude, prompting laughs from the others.

                “I do not!” Kid tried to defend himself.

                “You do to, and I don’t even know why. You don’t need to wear clothes to stay warm, your immune to weather, like hot and cold, right? Yet your always layered up, so uncool.”

                “There’s nothing wrong with layering clothes.” Having given up on self-defense, Kid started to head down the path of defending the action of layering clothes.

                “Yeah, but most people only do it when they have to stay warm because it feels stuffy, you do it all the time for no reason.” Everyone else made a noise of agreement, and Kid finally decided to go on the offensive.

                “Fine if you are this determined to embarrass me, then let’s see if you can handle a dose of your own medicine.” Kid said, standing up and straightening his outfit before spreading his arms out. Before anybody could ask what he was doing, something akin to wind start to whip around the room as the stripes around Kid’s head detached themselves and the bottom two started to connect. Kid was floating about six inches off the ground and his eyes were glowing, seemingly absent of mind if it weren’t for the load shout he was letting out. Soon enough the lines connected and Kid fell to the ground, landing as perfect as ever. As astonished as the group was by this sudden turn in events, they couldn’t help but notice when Lord Death grunted and hunched over.

                “Lord Death!”

                “He’s fine.” Kid said, just as Lord was responding with an ‘I’m fine’. Lord Death sat up and gave Kid a thumbs up.

                “Good job, Kiddo, that was one of your best transitions yet. Much faster.” Lord Death compliment his son’s progress, earning a smile in return.

                “Thank you, Father.” Kid said before turning his focus to Soul and Black Star, the ones who pushed hardest for his embarrassment and were generally the biggest pains in his neck. “Let’s see how you like having embarrassing memories of _you_ shown.”

                Soul gulped, a little worried at this prospect. He couldn’t remember half the stupid shit he and Black Star did in front of Kid. Black Star, being Black Star, was far less concerned, but uncharacteristically uneasy regardless. Images started to wiggle onto the mirror again.

                _Kid was in the school’s small courtyard, studying some material that was probably far ahead of what they were learning in class. Things seemed calm, at least until…_

_“Hey, Kid!” Black Star’s loud voice burst through his concentration and Kid sighed, looking up to see Black Star and Soul standing there._

_“What do you want, don’t you need to be studying?” Kid sighed, sitting up and sitting his book down._

_“We need you help us with an argument we are having.” Soul said, one hand resting on his hip as he tried to look as uninterested as possible._

_“Alright then.”_

_“You’d totally suck a dick for a million dollars, right?” Black Star blurted out, with all the grace of a new born fawn figure skating._

_“No, you wouldn’t! That’s totally gay.” Soul started to argue before Kid could even answer._

_“Yeah, but it’s a million dollars, that’s a lot of cash. If someone was really offering you a million dollars, like had briefcase of cash offering it to you, you’d totally give him a blowjob.” Black Star argued back, both hands on his hips, looking stubborn as ever._

_“No, I wouldn’t, my self-worth is worth a lot more than a million dollars.”_

_“You’re not taking this seriously, it’s a **million dollars**.”_

_“Kid!” They both whipped their heads towards Kid, looking for his answer._

_“I think you’re both idiots. Your both right, if confronted with the possibility of riches, most people wouldn’t hesitate to do almost anything, but one’s self worth is definitely worth more and several might not take the deal. Me, personally, am actually worth well over a million dollars and don’t really care. So, I repeat, you’re idiots.”_

                And with that absolutely ruthless line, the memory faded out, just as the Soul and Black Star in the memory were about to retaliate.

                All the girls were laughing at the boy’s expense. Soul seemed to be absolutely mortified, and so was Black Star; but since Black Star is who he is, his response to this mortification was to lunge at Kid, who saw the attack coming and side stepped it. They were fighting soon enough, anyway.

                Watching the following fight, Lord Death got the strangest, most peculiar feeling that no matter when Kid decided to take his position as full death god, as long as he had his friends he’d be okay.

                The rest of the night went off without a hitch. They played Cards Against Humanity until they got bored of it and started to watch movies. Soul insisted that all the movies Kid and the Tomsons had were uncool, but seemed to enjoy them anyway. Lord Death left half way through the second movie, he wasn’t sure anybody noticed they left.


	17. Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuation of sorts of the last chapter. Lord Death calls Kid to his office. Character Death. Sort of sad.

                “Come on, Kid, just blow it off.” Black Star groaned as they made their way down towards Lord Death’s office. Soul and Liz nodded/moped in agreement; Maka and Tsubaki looked at their partners, unimpressed; Patty seemed to be looking at something happening outside. They had been on their way out of the school for the day, so that they could go to see a new movie, when Kid had gotten an emergency call from his father. The others were less then pleased. “Don’t you ever break any rules? Have any fun?”

                “No.” Kid answered swiftly, before evaluating what Black Star had said and noticing an error. “No to the first two, I have plenty of fun.” Liz snorted at his correction, earning a glare from Kid. “This is important; Father never calls if it isn’t important. It’s probably just a small administrative issue. If it’s going to take more the a few minutes, I’ll tell you.”

                In the last few months, Kid had taken several steps towards assuming his place as a full reaper. For one thing, he had started keeping the two lines he had already connected together at all times, instead of letting them recede back. He had also taken over several small administrative tasks at the school on the behalf of his father. That all started when Kid had made Liz and Patty into Death Scythes, but that is another story all together.

                “Make it snappy, we don’t want to miss the previews.” Soul sighed as they finally reached their destination.

                “It’ll just be a minute.” Kid said, holding up a finger as he entered his father’s room. He had sure to shut the door tightly behind him before turning to face his father. He noticed that Spirit was sort of sulking in the corner of the room, yet again. Had his father caught him flirting with the staff again? There was no telling with that crazy ol’ perv. That made Kid smile for a split second before remembering that he was called there for a reason. “Hello, Father, what do you want from me? You said it was an emergency.”

                It was then that Kid had noticed the somber mood that was radiating from Lord Death. Kid had a bad feeling about this. His father, who had been facing away from him towards his mirror, turned, revealing that he was without his mask, the small object cast to the floor like the small thing that it was. It occurred to Kid that it had been years since he had seen his father’s face, making his unease increase. Something was very wrong.

                “Ah! Hello, Kiddo, yes, I wanted to speak with you. We have to have a serious conversation.” Lord Death waved him forward, and Kid responded to the motion, although slightly slow and uneasy.

                “Yes, you mentioned that, what’s wrong?” It was so strange seeing his father’s face after so long.

                “We need to talk about the matter of your becoming a full Death God.” Lord Death’s clear face was serious, and the glow behind it seemed dimmer then Kid remembered it being when he was a child. “You appear to be taking your time.”

                “I don’t want to rush into anything.” That didn’t appear to be the answer Death was looking for, as he sighed and shook his head.

                “Kid, you are more than ready to take your position. I have a feeling you have a much more emotional reason for doing so.” Any oversized hand rest on Kids shoulder. “Kiddo, I know you are very worried about the future, and your anxiousness about becoming a full death god is not unfounded, you should be worried, it’s a big deal. But, if we are being honest with ourselves, we know the reason you are putting this off is because you don’t want to kill m-“

                “Please, don’t say it.” Kid closed his eyes, tilting his head to the side and his eyes screwed shut tighter. He was being melodramatic again. Lord Death repressed a sigh, instead rubbing the side of his giant blocky thumb against Kid’s cheek.

                “Kid, it’s perfectly reasonable that you don’t want to kill me, but I told you about that little detail with the confidence that you would handle it like an adult. Please don’t make me regret my decision.” Kid wiggled out from out of his father’s grasp.

                “I don’t think it is childish not to want to _kill_ my father.” Kid shook his head. “While you kept secrets from me in the past, it was nothing that made me want to hurt you.”

                “Kiddo, this won’t hurt, I won’t explode or any silly fanfare like that, I’ll just peacefully cease to exist.” Death tried to assure his progeny, but Kid still looked unsure. “It’ll hurt you more than anyone else, really. A massive input of power like that, all the effort, ouch. Plus, I imagine that all the power you have built up so far is starting to hurt, without the physiological changes that you need to harbor it.”

                “It is starting to sting a bit, yes.”

                “If you get much more powerful without realizing your true form, I’d imagine you’d explode.”

                “Now isn’t the time for jokes, Father.” Kid was giving his father his signature scolding look. Death liked that face. It’d serve him well.

                “Things are very solemn, I’d say it’s a perfect time for a joke, and it was only half a joke, anyways.” Kid stared at his father, grabbing at his chest.

                “You really think I could explode!?”

                “You two are getting off topic.” Spirit sighed, shaking his head. Kid turned, to find the Death Scythe standing right behind him. When did he get there?

                “Oh, yes, thank you, Death Scythe!” Lord Death bounced, but Kid didn’t look away from Spirit. Kid could tell Spirit had his own thought on the matter, and it only made sense. Spirit was his best friend that was currently alive. Death Scythes always became close with Lord Death, at least that is what he had always told him. Lord Death had told Kid once, when he was just a child that whoever was made head Death Scythe, would always become his best friend. Spirit seemed to pick up that Kid caught his thoughts, and gripped Kid’s shoulder.

                “Kid, it’s not fair of you to keep doing this to your dad. The stronger you get, the weaker he gets. He was once a great and powerful warrior, but now… He’s just a sad husk of who he was. It’s not fair to him let his life get dragged out like this.” Kid turned his head to take an even better look at his father. When he had gotten here he had noticed that glow behind his face was weak, but on closer inspection, Kid had to say Spirit was right. Death looked strangely lithe, almost fragile. It was very sad, when he thought about it… “It’s hurting you both too much to keep going on like this, but especially your father… It’s a mercy killing, more than anything else.”

                “Death Scythe! Don’t call it a killing, you’ll scare him away. We’re trying to convince him to take his proper place in the world, not give him a hernia.” Lord Death scolded, shaking a finger at the weapon. Kid was quiet.

                “I’m just trying to help, it’s no picnic for me to watch all this.”

                “No, he had a point.” Kid suddenly said, and both of the adults looked over at the teen and with that look they knew. Kid had made his choice. His shoulders were held back, his head straight, eyes determined. Spirit back pedaled away from the gods. “This isn’t good, it’s not right, it’s unbalanced. I’m more than ready to assume my position…”

                Kid stepped forward, and then faltered.

                “What happens after I do this?”

                “We will throw a memorial service for your father.” Spirit answered, now back at a respectable distance. “After that we will have an enthronement ceremony for you and you’ll take full control of the school and your father’s list. If there is an emergency between now and your enthronement, you will have permission to pass judgement, but the system Lord Death has set up with the students and the missions, keeps things in order fairly automatically most the time. Everything should be fine.”

                “Thank you.” Kid nodded, taking a deep breath and another step forward. Kid started to glow, his lines lifting from his head-

                “Stop!” Death shouted abruptly, shocking Kid to a screeching halt.

                “Father, what’s wr-“ Kid started to ask, but he was cut off when his father wrapped his arms around him in a hug. Kid returned the hug, but he couldn’t see his father’s none existent eyes screw shut. Lord Death found himself being washed over by a memory.

                _There was a knock at Lord Death’s door, and under his mask he smiled before turning to his infant son._

_“Hear that, Kiddo, your new nanny is here to take you for the day.” Death rubbed the top of Kid’s head and the boy giggled. Lord Death had a good feeling about this Samantha girl. Kid seemed to like her, and Kid didn’t like anybody. He had ripped the hair out of his third nanny on the first day. “Come in!”_

_“Hey, look who is up and about already.” Samantha smiled as she entered the room. “Most kids aren’t alert this early.”_

_“Kiddo isn’t like most kids; he doesn’t need as much rest.” Lord Death said, plucking his son up from his high chair. A diaper bag materialized over Samantha’s shoulder, startling her._

_“That so…” She said, adjusting the bag slightly. “So, you taught your killer baby to shoot lasers yet?” Samantha joked and Death couldn’t help but chuckle._

_“No, not yet.” Samantha had been made aware that Kid’s powers could manifest at any time and of his history of torturing nannies. Samantha thought it was funny. “Any day now.”_

_“Alright, come here, killer.” Samantha cooed, scooping Kid up. “You’re going to spend the day with me. Can you say bye bye to your daddy?”_

_“Oh, Kid doesn’t-“_

_“Bye bye! Bye, Dada.” Kid said, waving an arm like he was trying to wave. Lord Death was stunned. He didn’t know Kid knew ‘bye’ yet. Kid was a smart little boy, and he knew several words, but he didn’t know ‘bye’ was in his word bank. Was this what they meant when they said that children would surprise you every day? Lord Death reached out and ruffed Kid’s tiny tuff of black hair._

_“Good bye, Kiddo.” Lord Death chuckled before looking up at Samantha. “Enjoy him while he’s still all happy. He’s a morning baby, in two hours he’ll be fussing like it was his job.”_

_“I can handle it.” Samantha smiled, walking towards the door. Kid pulled himself over her shoulder._

_“Bye, Dada! Bye bye, Da- Deeee!”_

                It was weird the things you think of before you die.

                “Good bye, Kiddo.”

                “Good bye, Father.”

                The pair took a step back. No more words were said.

#############################################################################

                Outside the office, the gang was growing impatient.

                “He’s been in there forever, let’s just leave.” Soul complained, leaning against the wall.

                “No way, the prices at the theater are ridiculous. When we go with Kid we get a crazy discount because he’s Lord Death’s son. No way are we paying full price.” Liz scoffed. “So we miss some lame previews, what’s the big, fat deal?”

                “Previews are not lame, they give you reason to come back to theater, and they are fun to watch.”

                “What are you talking abou-“

                The ground started to shake slightly, jarring the group from their bickering. They all looked around, as if doing so would help them find the source. Then there was something of a shockwave that knocked them all out on their asses.

                “What the hell!?”

                “It came from inside the office.” Maka said, adjusting her clothes as she got up from her fall.

                “That’s it, I’ve had enough.” Black Star said, leaping up from the floor. Before anybody could question him, he was heading in a full spirit towards the door, culminating in him leaping up and planting both feet in the center of the door, snapping it in half. “WHA- HOO!”

                “Black Star!” The rest of the group scolded, stepping in closer to the door, and that’s when they heard it. Crying.

                “Kid.” Liz gasped, stepping over the shattered remains of the door.

                “Kid!” Patty gasped as well, and both of the girls ran into the room, with the others lagging behind them at a jog.

                There Kid was, in the middle of the floor, kneeling on the ground and clutching something and crying. Spirit was standing next to him, a hand on his shoulder, he appeared equally upset. When the group was halfway to him, that’s when they all noticed it. The three complete stripes on his head. They all ran faster.

                “Kid, what happened-“ Liz halted when she reached Kid, before covering her mouth when she saw what he was clutching. A black cloak. Lord Death’s black coat. “Oh, Kid.” She knelt down and hugged him, it was closer to holding him really. Patty hugged him to, but was considerably more forceful than her sister.

                “What happened?”

                “Yeah, what’s wrong? Where is Lord Death?” Tsubaki asked, more than a little concerned.

                “Are you blind? You see the three stripes, the empty cloak, what do you think happened?” Liz glared, her hold becoming something more protective. Patty took a similar stance.

                “Yeah, leave Kid alone.” Patty glared up at them. Kid suddenly stood up, dragging Liz and Patty to a standing position with him.

                “Calm down, girls, I’m fine.” His tone of voice and quivering lip assured them all that he was, in fact, not fine. “In all the fuss, I forgot about the movies. I’m sorry. You can go without me if you want, my personal tragedy shouldn’t ruin your afternoon.”

                “No way, man, we can’t just leave you alone.” Soul shook his head. “Leaving your friends alone in their time of need is uncool.”

                “The online reviews for the movie we picked said it was horrible anyway.” Maka added. “As leader of our resonance group, I suggest a change in bonding activities. I move that we go to Kid’s place and cheer him up. All opposed?” Silence. “All for?”

                “Aye!” Was the resounding response. Kid, even in his state of distress, had to roll his eyes. After a few trying mission a few months ago, they had joked that Maka was like a dictator. From then on, they voted on everything, but it was more of a joke than anything else. Why were these his friends?

                “You all don’t have to do this, I’ve preparing for this for months, over a year now, I’ll be fine.”

                “Lair.”

                “Yeah, that’s bull and you know it, Kid.” Black Star scoffed. “But it’ll be fine, because the great Black Star is here to assist you!” Black Star put a hand of Kid’s shoulder. “I know all about having dead parents, so I can show you the ropes. Welcome to the Orphan Club, buddy.”

                “REAPER CHOP!”

                SMACK!!!

                Black Star glared up at Kid, blood gushing down his forehead. He stood straight up, hands on his hips, driven two feet into the ground, looking like nothing had happened. Because Black Star.

                “That was unnecessary.”

                “I hate you.” Kid groused. His tears were starting to dry.

                “Nah, I’m your bestie.” Black Star grinned, stepping out of his hole. He then proceeded to grab Kid and lift him over his head.

                “Black Star!” Kid shrieked, clutching his father’s cloak closer to his chest. “Put me down!”

                “To Kid’s house!” Black Star hollered, carrying him towards the door. The others let out a cheer and followed his lead. Just before she reached the door, Maka stopped and turned to her dad.

                “Papa, are you going to be okay?”

                “I’ll be fine, Maka.” Spirit dismissed, wiping his own tears away. “I’ve been expecting this a long time. I’ll handle things here at the school, you and your friends go make sure our next headmaster recovers emotionally in time for his coronation.” Maka smiled at him.

                “Thanks, Papa, we’ll do that.” And she was off, but Spirit hear Kid’s squawks of protest from here.

                “Black Star, you put me down!”

                “Black Star!”

                “This is no way to treat someone whose father just died!”

                “If you are going to carry me, at least carry me symmetrically!”

                “Black Star!”

                **_“Black Star!!!”_**

                Yeah, Kid would be okay.


End file.
